Unless I missed something, it’s been almost three months since Ty Segall put out an album. For the absurdly prolific 31-year-old L.A. singer-guitarist — who released six full-length discs last year alone — this is practically a delay of Chinese Democracy proportions. But our long national nightmare is finally over; Segall and his hard-rocking Freedom Band have returned to fill the void with the new live album Deforming Lobes. Recorded at Los Angeles’ Teragram Ballroom by punk curmudgeon and sonic purist Steve Albini, the 35-minute disc finds the band cherrypicking cuts from the past decade of Segall’s extensive catalogue. For the most part, the numbers — including the pounding Crawler, the Hendrix-like Breakfast Eggs and the headbanging They Told Me To — are kept lean, mean, fast-moving and thunderously heavy. But a few others — notably 2012’s Warms Hands and the more recent Love Fuzz — are stretched into sprawling, epic jams fuelled by plenty of blistering fretwork from Segall and fellow guitarist Emmett Kelly. They should hold you for the week or so it might take Segall to write, record and release his next record.
