Historically, there is excess in Ty Segall’s fuzz – “waiter, there’s excess in my fuzz!” – but while such excess may have given the Californian rocker a foothold on slightly noisier subgenres of rock music, songs like Running to Nowhere, Everything You’ve Been and even Separation go that bit further, teasing eighteenth album Chrome as his hardcore album. Via pummelling speed and pummelling noise – the poor guy just wants to pummel – it’s rare to hear Ty go this hard in this kind of way. He uses his fuzz pedals to charge a consistent heaviness through his songs, but in a controlled, Albini-producing-Nirvana manner that seldom lets fun, feeling or rock n roll get obscured by messy noise.

This whole hardcore thing is the closest Chrome comes to groundbreaking. The focus seemed to be on Ty getting his Ty Segall Band back together, the ensuing frolics being the sort of doomy, twisted goblin rock – with an honest heart – many expect when he has Emmett Kelly, Evan Burrows, Mikal Cronin and Ben Boyce by his side. Luckily, Hospital comes with some nifty lyrics – “she’s like a hospital to me”, the molten fuzz of Let Go is startling, and Play Cowboys, through angry guitar leads and thumping, chromatic basslines, is the sort of fucked-up, psychedelic blues The Beatles may have made if they’d lasted through the ‘70s.

Chrome both is and isn’t unique within the Ty Segall sphere. Its rowdier, hardcore-adjacent tunes provide some distinction, but his defaults are also widely present. Still, the guy continues to play rock music a little differently to everybody. Regardless of how far he decides to stray from himself, his music is special.

Best tracks – Running to Nowhere – Play Cowboys.

Rating – 6.5 out of 10