Thrill of mayhem
Ty Segall’s taste for breaking boundaries is satiated in his side-project GØGGS’ newest release Pre Strike Sweep. Inherently abstract with punk tendencies for aggressive rock, the melody is difficult to follow–but that is where the value lies. Not having to worry about a musical motif to hum along to, but to blissfully and arrogantly listen with no intent other than to experience.
Opening song “Killing Time” teases us with gentle picking of guitar strings, coiled with imminent destructive timbre that eventually throws the band into a paroxysm riddled with amplified garage feedback. The album’s title track “Pre Strike Sweep” lets oscillating guitar texture the sound as fragmented drums shatter the rhythmic pattern. The vocals crackle with angst, as the sheer maximalist volume of the instrumentation perpetuates endless hysteria. GØGGS’ infuriating reluctance to color within the lines suspends their listeners in a perpetual shiver of uncertainty. GØGGS’ sound falls within boundaries of erraticism that contorts the noise into music, and Pre Strike Sweep seems utterly perfect for a mosh pit or gory film scene.
Finding themselves drawn to the peculiarities of such mayhem, listeners in turn are swept up by the splintering mess that GØGGS turns into rock music. And while “Still Feeding” teases us with hoppy drum patterns, jazzy tambourine and a rhythmic bassline, shouting vocals timely unwind the song into a punk masterpiece. Drifting into a slower tempo, 1:22 suspends chaos for a harmonic scale to reach a climactic peak with ringing guitar.
GØGGS get their kicks from the thrill of verging on indecent impulsivity, but their sound is more characterized by forging new avant-unorthodox music. Commotion drives the album forward, stagnating only in songs that dwell in lingering rock-jam sessions like “Vanity.” Layered with instrumental disarray, the album seems constantly interrupted, like voices that speak over one another wanting to be heard.
Pre Strike Sweep sounds like how one might musically describe anxiety: the intimate relationship with impending peril. A whirling sensation, not one of giddy and candid enjoyment, but of spinning tumult leading to nowhere in particular. Pre Strike Sweep is an invention of modern time, an auditory space for violence to drip from your pores like panic sweat from paralyzing anxiety. Closer “Morning Reaper” is a powerful, almost discouraging tune. Scratching wired-guitar and a humming bass melody flatter the listeners with cathartic release–just as the power-hungry band taps out.
Music is said to sometimes mimic atmospheric tension, and sometimes it relieves that tension with soft melodies by bringing harmony to chaos. Pre Strike Sweep cringes at this musical intention, instead engaging face-to-face with the stifling anxiety that pervades modern society and provokes agitation with clenched fists.
GØGGS is inspiring in a reckless way, with the same ’70s punk attitude of breaking the fortified ceiling of radio-playable music. Short tempered but with careful articulation, GØGGS’ sound is unheeding to preconceived notions of musicality as they thrash about with a propensity for musical violence.
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