Ty Segall's 'Chrome' Is the Sound of a Band Actually Hanging Out
The Sonic Breakdown
The credit list is the trick: Chrome is co-produced by Segall and Cooper Crain, and the songwriting credits distribute across the whole band — Segall, Evan Burrows, Denée Segall, Emmett Kelly, Mikal Cronin, Matt Yoka — with the five players in the room co-writing roughly half the record. That’s not a Ty Segall solo album with hired hands; it’s the Ty Segall Band writing songs together, and you can hear it in the way the arrangements settle.
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Cronin’s bass is high in the mix in the best 1970s way, doing melodic work rather than sitting under the guitars.
The Spatial Dynamics: Louder Than War gave it a full 100. Writing at Paste, Luke Cartledge called it “yet another remarkably coherent, masterfully-constructed record from one of modern rock’s great artisans” and framed it as “the product of people jamming in a room together for hours on end, gradually mining the songs out of their interactions like sculptures from uncut marble.” He singles out “Everything You’ve Been” and “Running To Nowhere” for their “pure Black Sabbath” doom moves and calls out “Black Paint” for pairing “monstrous, mid-collapse guitars with the album’s sweetest melodies.”
Standout Performance
Evan Burrows on drums, again — every Ty Segall Band record turns on his commitment to a groove, and Chrome rewards him with material that lets him swing.
Why It’s Certified
- ⚡ “Black Paint” — the album’s melodic peak, and its heaviest chorus.
- 🌈 “Everything You’ve Been” and “Running To Nowhere” — Cartledge is right about the Sabbath moves; they land.
- ⚡ Nine songs, thirty-two minutes. Exactly the length this kind of record should be.