Prolific output and multiple side projects became part of garage punk icon Ty Segall's brand early on, as he released numerous albums per year, both solo and with various other incarnations from his nascent days. GØGGS surfaced after this was a well-established facet of Segall's fame, emerging with a self-titled album in 2016 and joining Fuzz, Party Fowl, the Traditional Fools, and many others on the list of Segall's collaborations outside of his own records. Blue Cheer-meets-Black Flag is an accurate description of GØGGS' complementary colors on the first album, with Ex-Cult's Chris Shaw delivering growling and untethered lead vocals somewhere between the bloodthirsty depravity of My War-era Rollins and Jello Biafra's quivering snideness. This, added to Segall's mastery of overblown guitar tones, made for a stellar debut, and the volume and songcraft only improve on sophomore album Pre Strike Sweep. Still operating at full blast, the band moves even deeper into its pre-established modes of sludgy proto-metal guitar tones and feral '80s L.A. punk, but the occasional sideline into spaced-out synth squalls brings to mind the extraterrestrial aggression of Hawkwind or more alien contemporaries like Human Eye. The band wears its influences transparently, tearing into Greg Ginn-esque guitar solos on more than one occasion and evoking both Circle Jerks' tempos and Wipers' depression on songs like the frantic "Space Rinse." Ultimately, these influences get washed away into the sea of anxiety and frustration that defines GØGGS more than any given reference point. Tightly constructed songs and Segall's over-the-edge production style squeeze anger and violence out of every minute of the record. Songs like "Burned Entrance" evoke the same hopelessness and palpable hatred for society from a band like Void, but complex song structures and exacting musicianship temper the scrappy and amateur energy that's often inseparable from the best punk. Blasting through 11 songs in less than half-an-hour, Pre Strike Sweep never settles into one mode or frame of reference for long. Instead, the album drags and scrapes itself into being for its entire duration, angry and bleeding and looking for new angles with every new riff, crash, and tortured scream.
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