CFM

Forever intertwined with the careers of Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin via his rotating stages of collaboration with both, Charles Moothart strikes out with his second solo album, a delightful chunk of fuzz and rumble that echoes the best bits of both those artists. A stride away from the heavy stoner antics of his most well-known turn in Fuzz, Dichotomy Desaturated tumbles through the fields of Sabbath, then touches up the riffs with a faded photo memory of glam left in the sun. Moothart has certainly been picking his way through Ty’s T. Rex collection, and he adds a touch of that acoustic nuance over the top of these garage-psych gems, but it’s clear that his tenure in Fuzz is no incidental brush with the gods of ’70s proto-metal. He’s picking through the full gamut of sludge lords here, from Flower Travelin’ Band to Blue Cheer and on through Leaf Hound.

He’s at his best, though, on the mid-tempo slow jams, reveling in a slower pace and perhaps a catch of breath from the frantic energy he’s so often embroiled in. On “Voyeurs” he takes the tempo down to a simmer, but finds plenty to chew on in the song’s leathered swagger and smoke curl cool. Elsewhere “Desaturated” floats through an intoxicated haze, stumbling charmingly with a cocked smile and an air of late night isolation. In the end though, Moothart’s ability to stuff a fuzzed riff full of catchy catharsis seems to win out. He shows off his amp-fried freakouts over the majority of Dichotomy’s red-lined territory and he’s an admirable wall shaker, as usual. Something tells me though that Moothart could be the one to crack onto the perfect distillation of Sabbath’s softer side. I’ve always felt that someone needs to make a record that splits the “Planet Caravan”/”Solitude” axis and then just runs it down both sides. The seeds are here, and that’s enough to keep me listening.