by Alli Dempsey (@alliidempsey)
For Freckle—the new collaborative project between garage rock pioneer Ty Segall and Color Green guitarist Corey Madden—their self-titled debut is a means for experimentation while embracing their musical roots. Freckle is playful, coated with a lively texture of traditional rock melodies and bohemian percussion—a meeting place where both Segall’s recent instrumental endeavors and Madden’s breezy psych-folk are generously kissed by the Californian sun.
On Freckle, Segall’s twangy, spiraling rock motifs feel bigger and more expansive—his high octane cries more sobering when underscored with Madden’s haunting, low hum. “Paranoid” sounds like something off Segall’s 2017 self-titled album, but the song’s roaring backline, amplified electric guitar spritzes, and Madden’s deep, impassioned backing vocals transform the track into a brazing classic rock-esque anthem.
Freckle’s drum work is an element that sticks, perhaps heightened and tinkered with extra carefully due to Segall’s 2024 all-instrumental album, Love Rudiments. He brings that LP’s glittery and sonorous energy to moments on Freckle, like the light, chiming bells that ring out on “Silk” and the soft maraca sounds that grift through “For The Last Time.” While letting these percussion tools play and mingle by themselves was an interesting concept on its own, letting their chorus erupt behind a cascading guitar solo and energetic bridges—as they do on Freckle—elevates the resulting beats completely. As the latter track escalates, Segall hits a string of “la la las” before declaring “I’m changing my mind for the last time.” When paired with aching cymbals and disparaged keys, the line sounds like something out of 70s desert California; the potential of each instrumental element on Freckle is raised by the presence of the others.
Segall is an artist who has always thrived in collaboration, and this is no different in his partnership with Madden. As the album progresses, his usually tame and fluttery voice shifts to take a more yelpy and raspy tone. You can feel Segall tapping into a previously-unexplored element of his swagger as a performer. Madden assists with this, bringing a slightly sardonic bout of realism to his few, but impactful, spoken lyrics—especially on “Who’s Sitting on the Moon.” “Life’s a gas, and everything’s a joke,” he murmurs dismally, his antithetical statement later parlayed into an otherworldly, reverb-soaked guitar solo. Both artists succeed in playing into this foggy mystery, crafting songs that start out in a traditional, Americana sense but slowly melt into a storm of psychedelic calamity. It’s the best of both worlds, a middle ground where they can both evolve on a homegrown, earnest project.
The songs off Freckle are not unconstructed or mysterious, but rather flow easily, not taking themselves too seriously as they play on. It has what makes Segall’s garage rock anthems so vibrant and fun—hooky choruses, jangly acoustics, and 60s-style jammy infusion—and levels them up with the help of sharp production and Madden’s sporadic, dark allure. That same new-age folk rock sound that defines both of their other projects is still there, but with a glowing identity and wistful longing that recontextualizes Freckle’s ten tracks into not just collaborative jams, but a prolonged, shared narrative.