Historical Review: 12/14/2012
Thrashy, 77 style punk-surf rock, 2008 release re-released by In the Red this Jan, by Traditional Fools, a Ty Segall project, invades your face with grungy guitars and stretched-out, near monotone singing (totally Reed style). The record is almost some sort of deranged re-imagined early Beach Boys record, except much louder and more abrasive.
Ty has obviously proven himself as a great garage rocker/song-writer with the release of his Ty Segall Band album 
Slaughterhouse, released 2012 — among others. But this record certainly shows the bare roots. The record is much less polished and much more lo-fi than most of the Ty Segall records most of us have heard. Traditional Fools sounds like a live recording recorded on an iPhone or some sort of one microphone device set in the corner of the room. Not a bad thing, but the simple song structures lead you to think that much of the songs were off the cuff. Which is also cool. But at the end of the day, this record just doesn’t stand up against many of Ty’s other albums and other dirty garage rockers.
But with its pitfalls, incredibly short compositions and simplistic chord progressions, the record certainly has a flavor of its own. It is edgy and catchy. Certainly worth a listen, if you haven’t already heard it.