Seattle – The ironic thing about Ty Sygall’s latest album, Sleeper was that no one could imagine a time between touring, festivals and writing new albums for countless side projects when Segall and his crew actually find time to sleep. Just over a month after the August release of Sleeper, Segall and his latest project Fuzz released the band’s debut self-titled album through In The Red Records.

With Segall’s name attached to it, it might be easy to credit this to the prolific (it’s almost getting redundant to use that word with Segall) artist’s repertoire, but Fuzz is a more collaborative project (where Segall actually spends most of his time at the drum kit) with long time bandmates Charles Moothart and Roland Cosio, with whom Segall has been playing with since the trio were in high school.

Just as the set up of the group is different from typical Segall, so is the sound. The guitar riff that the opening track “Earthen Gate” builds to and concludes with introduces a distinctly metal vibe that might be what Fuzz is all about. The twinge of aggression that always seems to accompany Segall has found a new outlet in this project — to its core this album could be a head-banger’s soundtrack. Even “What’s In My Head?,” a track that starts out with a slower and slightly more bluesy vibe, quickly breaks into a heavy song  laden with shredding and frequent unbridled, yet controlled, breakdowns. In fact, almost every song showcases what the ridiculously talented Moothart can do with a guitar.

The inherent heaviness that he brings on guitar accompanied with Segall’s relentlessly intense drumming, however, occasionally makes Cosio’s bass a bit hard to find. Instead of feeling lost, however, the role of the bass in Fuzz isn’t neglected. It instead acts in some traditionalist sense. It never makes too big of a fuss about itself but without it the sound of each song would be feel empty. But then “Loose Sutures” comes and we get to hear Cosio and his bass alone in all their glory; the subtle importance of the bass becomes a little less subtle and way more awesome. Even with the band’s inclination to highlight guitar, the balance and comfort with which these guys play together is obvious and refreshing. They’re out to have fun and it shows.

Fuzz is available through In The Red records. We caught Fuzz earlier this year in Seattle and the live show is just as recommended as the album; check out the band’s upcoming tour dates here. For more about Ty Segall go here.