Pop Music: Youth Is Served With New Maturity From Syd, Cherry Glazerr and Ty Segall

Don't trust anyone over 30? Our three featured albums this month come from artists who are  younger than that -- one still not even 20 -- but all accomplished veterans of their respective scenes, and all emerging with works of remarkable focus and vision.

Syd

Sydney Bennett, known as Syd tha Kyd in her work with the Odd Future collective and co-fronting the atmospheric-soul syndicate the Internet, has jettisoned that label of youth for her solo debut, “Fin.” Now, with her solo debut she is just simply Syd, as if she’d shed her skin and is moving on to something new.

Well, the opening song is titled “Shake Em Off,” and is all about being able to move forward, to get rid of excessive baggage — emotional baggage, of course, but also a sense of being open to new possibilities, to ignore limitations. That’s right down to the music on the track, produced by Fontana hip-hopper Hitboy, with its sense of confident focus, pared down to impactful minimalism, her delivery of her affirmation clear and sharp and uncomplicated. It’s not the only little bit of advice she has, as she sings “Smile More” with a hopeful tone to a lover, and perhaps to herself  — a bit different and far more sensual context than the same advice given by Burr to Hamilton in the Broadway sensation.

That doesn't mean this is simple, not in any way. Working with a roster of producers including Internet guitarist Steve Lacy on some tracks and hazebanga (whose credits go from M.I.A. to Mariah Carey and Selena Gomez) on a couple, as well as producing three herself, she shows an impressive sense of art in the use of sound and space, building solidly on the Odd Future and Internet approaches. Connecting with the latter, this is being released concurrently with Internet partner Matt Martians’ album “The Drum Chord Theory,” and the two will be doing a joint tour. Even her voice is used with distinctive subtlety, often conversational but soaring with precise flights when she wishes, when it’s most effective.

And throughout there is a sense of promise in a young artist discovering her own talents, searching possibilities. One of the singles released ahead of the album puts that right in the title, the hip-hop/soul twitch “All About Me.” Based on what is heard here, we look forward to learning just that. She seems to be learning, too.

Cherry Glazerr

On arrival a few years ago, the then-teenaged L.A. trio Cherry Glazerr announced its sense of whimsy with its very name, an homage of sorts to L.A. public radio morning host Chery Glaser. There’s still plenty of whimsy with this third album — it’s titled “Apocalipstick,” after all, but here the band announces that it, unlike many others, fully understands that whimsy and irony are not the same thing and that whimsy and depth can do more than just coexist, but strengthen each other. And founder-front person Clementine Creevy — now complemented by two new members in drummer Tabor Allen and multi-instrumentalist Sasami Ashworth — is still not yet 20.

Opener “Told You I’d Be With the Guys” is an inside-out reach for solidarity with other women, echoed in the song’s sound, built on a kickoff guitar lick that consciously or otherwise evokes “Last Splash” by the Breeders, a notable ‘90s female-centric band. Guided by veteran producers Joe Chicarrelli and Carlos De La Garza, the trio brings brightness to the sound, punchy and powerful, but also loaded with hooks that call to mind not just the Breeders, but other similar vintage acts ranging from the Cure to Jane’s Addiction, Creevy able to shriek like Perry Farrell or coo like Debbie Harry, the swings maximizing the impact.

For all of that, at root this is still your basic rock trio of guitar, bass and drums, moving from the metal wallop of “Moon Dust” to the compelling punk-surf waves of “Humble Pro” (which itself breaks into melodic choruses before returning to crash-bang mode) to the more subdued, somber “Nuclear Bomb.” Later, “Sip O’ Poison” gallops away from — or perhaps it’s toward — dread in a dense clip-clop as Creevy’s guitar trades distorted solos with a tinny synthesizer.

And then there’s another title that catches the eye: “Nurse Ratched,” a tribute to the complicated, monstrous, manipulative nurse of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”  Is it a condemnation? Is it a tribute? “You’re so cold master, where do I begin?” Creevy sings, later adding, “She’s a wild one in the land that’s supposedly free.” Maybe not so much whimsy here, but ambiguity at its best.

Ty Segall

Ty Segall’s riffed-up, revved-up guitar-rock song “Thank You Mr. K” stops for a second midway through, and then there’s a crash, like a chandelier flung down a sweeping staircase, before the musical fury resumes. Well, it’s not fine crystal. As you can see in a video on Segall’s web site, it’s really a toilet being smashed to bits. But those two contrasting images make for a pretty good description of what Segall offers on the latest of his many and frequent projects.

Glory and irreverence do battle throughout the album, titled simply “Ty Segall,” in classic glam-rock fashion -- and this is perhaps the most glam, and most focused, of the Southern Californian’s catalog, in which he has moved readily from rock to metal to folky musings, often in the course of one album.

So in that sense it’s noteworthy and fitting that he’s recycled the simple, focused title of his first ultra-indie release from 2008, bespeaking that sense of renewed purpose, if not a truly cleaned slate. Of course, that might also be tongue-in-cheek (not unusual for him) in that where he often works in the studio as a one-man band, here he’s focused on guitar and vocals in league with a full group, accompanied by longtime co-conspirator Mikal Cronin on bass, Emmet Kelly on guitar, Charles Moothart on drums and Ben Boye on keyboards.

Relatively short and crisp is the dominant mode, opener “Break a Guitar” coming off as T. Rex (a long-time Segall fave) jamming with Neil Young (another hero). “Freedom,” just two minutes long, is a classic anglophilic shuffle. There is contrast: “Orange Color Queen” slows it down for an acoustic turn, while “Warm Hands (Freedom Returned)” plays off the opener with an extended excursion stretching more than 10 minutes, and giving the band plenty of time to work through ranges of styles. Another contrast brings it all together, with closing “Take Care (To Comb Your Hair)” reaching back to ‘60s Merseyside and ‘70s power-pop for a catchy ditty. Though…. technically it’s not the closer. Never one to let a mood stand or a conclusion really be a conclusion, right after that song ends comes “Untitled,” listed at a full 13 seconds (yes, seconds) but really just a four-Mississippi burst of two quick beats). Don’t be surprised if Segall’s next album starts that way. Of course, at the rate he puts things out, we may have to wait just a few weeks for that one.

Bonus Track: Father John Misty, “Pure Comedy” single

And here, in a single previewing the upcoming album of the same title, we have the mercurial Mr. Misty channeling his inner Randy Newman (and a bit of John Lennon to boot) into timely, sardonic, unsparing topicality.

“Ladies, I hope we don’t end up regretting this,” he sings over a piano-centric arrangement in a song of fear about bringing children into this world — not a new concept, but perhaps a renewed one. In the accompanying video, our government is seen in places like something from a line-drawn Bosch hell-scape, countered here and there by images of children and animals, as well as some protests, for at least a slight glimmer of hope.

But that is hard-won and fleeting, as he finds plenty of targets at which to aim his disgust and despair, almost resignedly reaching the conclusion of the final line, as we see the Earth, photographed from space: “I hate to say it, but each other’s all we got.” Sounds like Father John is having something of a crisis of faith.

Still, there’s a sense of urgency to this, at least in its timing, a sense that he needs to say this right now. If that is something that carries throughout the album, it could be a masterpiece.