Goodbye Bread

*Goodbye Bread* is Ty Segall’s 2011 come-down long-player — a possible reaction to the crazed, mind-warping, psychedelic party that was 2010’s *Melted*. His fifth studio album (and first outing on Drag City) finds the prolific San Francisco garage rocker musing on more mature subject matter while keeping his youthful enthusiasm well intact. The title-track opens with a sole electric guitar accompanying Segall singing wistfully under wet reverb before bass and drums sneak in with morning-weary tempos. The staccato rhythms on “California Commercial” pick up the pace prior to “Comfortable Home (A True Story),” which plays like a medicated Kinks tune. It’s hard not to think of Love’s second album *Da Capo* while listening to the flamenco-tinged guitars that stop and start on “The Floor.” With catchier songs and more complex arrangements, *Goodbye Bread* could be the stone from which Segall steps into more masterful territories.

Ty Segall has his finger on it. A finger on it, digging into your vinyl, since 2008. Ty plays the show one-man-band style and goes home and plans the rest: the records you got, tunes in your head, the unpretentious display of rock wealth. So what do you get now? It's 2011. Ty is 23. So, do we get the comedown record? Yes and massive.

On his first full-length for Drag City, the SF-based garage rocker slows down but doesn't mellow out while demonstrating growth as a songwriter along the way.

Ty Segall is frequently compared with the late Jay Reatard, presumably because they both are: 1) young white males who play guitar; 2) generally (though not always accurately) associated with garage rock; 3) dudes whose first names end in “y.” But there are no echoes of Reatard’s music on Segall’s Goodbye Bread—in…

Goodbye Bread is an album that unfolds almost imperceptibly. But by the time the eighth track, “Where Your Head Goes” comes…

Following the hallucinogenic frenzy of his 2010 album, Melted, Goodbye Bread is the sound of Ty Segall mellowing out just a bit; this is a significantly calmer and more measured set of music than most of Segall's previous efforts, not to mention one that's tighter and more coherent.