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Ty Segall’s “Black Magick” Will Save Us All

Ty Segall

Yesterday, I touted the new forthcoming LP by Woods and mentioned their last three albums have graced my best of lists for those years. Ty Segall beats that, joining the top 5 four years running.

Not too long ago, Ty Segall’s “Black Magick” hit the airwaves. The track is off his new Suicide Squeeze single dubbed the Sentimental Goblin EP and it, more than pretty much any prior record I’ve heard embodies the early folk-tinged glam days of Marc Bolan and T. Rex.

“Black Magick” is on the lighter and softer side, more akin to 2013’s Sleeper than the intense garage rock for which he’s known. And, despite my name drop in the last paragraph, the song is blatantly and undeniably Segall.

On repeat:

Black Magick will save us all.

The song is a bit of a downer, emotionally. Yet there is something so wholesome about “Black Magick” that makes it among Ty Segall’s most raw and unequivocally powerful songs yet.

That’s saying a lot; “The West”, for example, holds a soft intensity that leaves behind much of the metaphor and wordplay you typically find in song-write and lyricism.

About that album, Segall noted:

“I was not in a good spot. I had been through some rough stuff, like my dad passed away, and was going through some relationship issues, too. Plus, I was having all of these awful dreams. Ones about sleep and death, and it’s from there that I’d write stuff from. It’s not really like what I do. It’s more brutal to me.”

“The West” appeared to be a direct and blatant song about the loss of his father and the estrangement from his mother.

But, for some reason, “Black Magick” seems even more tragic, even more revealing, and even more heartbreaking. Maybe it’s the melancholy chord progression. Maybe it’s the meandering warble in both guitar and vocal. Maybe it is the masked meaning, hidden in metaphor. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

The first pre-order pressing of “Black Magick” on half blue, half yellow vinyl is sold out But a second pressing on red vinyl is available for pre-order now from Suicide Squeeze.

UPDATE: In early 2023, I took a look back at the Sentimental Goblin EP in this video review and unboxed my copy of the 7-inch:

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