Sego releases an album named after a format that once meant bargain-bin status and makes it a feature. Direct to DVD collects thirteen tracks—brand new songs alongside unreleased gems written between album cycles—and packages them in repurposed DVD movie cases with sale stickers on the front, covers arriving randomly, no reservations allowed. The Los Angeles band operates differently by instinct. They launched their 2019 sophomore album with a tongue-in-cheek #segosucks campaign. They share a direct mobile number (text your name and city to +1 (323)-480-0500) so literally anyone can reach them, building a community of more than 5,000 contacts receiving personal updates. Years spent living and creating together inside a Downtown LA studio warehouse cultivated this approach: untethered from formal album cycle expectations, free to experiment, misbehave, and land wherever needed.
“Never Enuf” opens with an infectious groove fondly recalling Spoon’s most rhythmically playful work, the vocal tone and ascending energy immediately establishing the dopamine-fueled appeal critics have praised across Sego’s catalog. “Drinking from the endless insatiable dream” drives forward with debonair confidence before “there’s a glitter in the butter” bites through clap-laden charm. Celebratory backing vocals bolster the fuzzy rock drive, doses of synths and rollicking guitars past the two-minute mark, reinforcing the accessibility that sits alongside their experimental instincts. This is art-punk by non-punk non-artists, the band’s own description capturing how they sidestep convention while delivering hooks that NPR’s Bob Boilen needs “every last second” of.
“SAD” continues the contagious energy through panting vocal effects and twanging guitars, eventually conjoining with replay-inducing vigor. The lyrics depicting the struggle to move on after giving someone your entire heart pair fantastically with punchy vocal charisma and heavy-propulsion guitar layers. The emotional directness cuts through without melodrama, the production maintaining clarity while allowing the distortion to breathe. This balance—bright polish meeting grunge ruckus, siren-blaring hooks alongside blown-out distortion—defines the album’s appeal.
“Buy It Break It” fuses shimmering guitar swipes, pulsing bass, and enthusiastic vocals while lyrically skewering fame-chasing and inherited guilt. “You write your name on the bathroom stall / you like to think that you’re famous” captures delusion colliding with disillusion, the swaggering delivery undercut by self-lacerating awareness. A sharp vocal and aesthetic switch-up appears briefly yet impactfully, restrained synth-pop lightness before launching back into rock-ready vigor. The willingness to pivot mid-song, to follow internal logic rather than predetermined structure, reflects the album’s marginal status—these songs exist where experimentation and risk live without expectation.
“Shook” and “So Wrong” allow the art-rock elements freer rein, the adventuresome if not outright experimental aspects still making complete sense within the album’s tonal palette. Sego’s allure extends beyond their anthemic moments into this terrain where they twist expectations through synthesizers, drum machines, and playfully subversive lyricism. Consequence of Sound compared their musical quirks and kinks to “Beck’s zanier tendencies,” the reference apt—there’s a stream-of-consciousness quality, an espresso bender energy, and technical precision made accessible through sheer audacity.
“Exposure” featuring Return to Sender invigorates with a head-nodding blast of whirring energy, the rough and tough Californian funk-rock highlighting how the American West Coast shaped the band despite Utah origins. The groovy, punky, funky, joyful mayhem Analogue Trash describes permeates the track, the collaboration expanding the sonic palette while maintaining Sego’s distinctive identity. You catch subtle flavorings of Beck, LCD Soundsystem, Sonic Youth, and Metric, but the result doesn’t quite sound like anyone else.
“Falling Down” delivers hard-rocking tenacity; the traversal from aggressive energy into halted theatrical emotion is especially memorable. The track channels peak Weezer as the title-touting hook arrives, enthralling particularly after the three-minute turn when subdued guitars and spacey synths converge into an anthemic charge of blistering guitars and delectably raucous vocals. Paste Magazine calling them purveyors of “one of the best rock choruses of the year” and “a thinking man’s moshpit album” makes perfect sense here—the intelligence doesn’t preclude visceral impact.
“Young Turks” and “Dilute You V2_07-21-17” (the file name dating preserved as title, another margin-dwelling choice) continue building the collection that feels like flipping through a box of tapes you forgot you loved. Unfinished thoughts, alternate versions, moments that matter precisely because they weren’t overthought. These are the songs that happen between albums, the oddball tracks once sitting on the fringe, now hanging about on a feature.
“Body Stretch” retains twangy, frolicking rock passion while being especially rhythm-forward in its bookends, setting up the album’s shift into danceable territory. The final three tracks—remixes of older material from Mr. Tape, Spencer Ether, and Mondo Cozmo—reinforce Sego’s instinct to stretch each idea as far as it can go. Mr. Tape’s “Wild Horses” remix infuses throbbing bass, party-set sample energy, and wispy synths into LCD Soundsystem-esque vocal feeling. Spencer Ether’s “Normal Baby 99” remix enamors with dancefloor-set vocal encouragements and pulsing bass drops. Mondo Cozmo’s “Wild Horses” remix adds more effervescent, upfront vibrancy to the mix. The pivot from rock-forward majority to electro-friendly closers works because Sego trusts that their audience came for the adventure, not predictability.
Direct to DVD rewards longtime fans with familiar sounds drawn from every era of Sego’s catalog—three full-length albums and various singles/EPs with labels like Kitsune, Dine Alone, Roll Call Records, earning them European tours, festival appearances at SXSW, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, a national Xfinity commercial during the Olympics, and Super Bowl. Newcomers receive a wide-ranging introduction to everything the band has explored over the years, the breadth demonstrating range without sacrificing cohesion.
The album’s strength lies in its refusal to apologize for existing in the margins. These songs weren’t overthought because overthinking kills the moments that make margin-dwelling worthwhile. The humor, risk, and experimentation that formal album cycles sometimes constrain get full expression here. From “Never Enuf” to “Body Stretch,” not one weak point appears; the achievement is particularly notable in an era where major labels equate quantity with quality. Sego chose quality through curation, assembling forty-five minutes of dopamine hits that break the almighty algorithm through their groovy, punky, funky refusal to fit neatly anywhere.
The phrase “direct to DVD” carried judgment once, implying unworthiness of wider viewing. But it also provided a way for artists to subvert the entertainment industry’s imperative to create product rather than art. Sego goes the latter route, the collection of new songs and older leftfield material nonetheless possessing a distinctive identity. It’s not that the album is uncommercial—these are infectious moments, replay-inducing hooks, anthemic choruses worthy of festival bookings. It’s that the joyful mayhem refuses compromise, trusts that margin-dwelling has value, and believes that the songs happening between albums deserve celebration equal to the official releases. Direct to DVD flips the format’s implied lesser value into something substantial, proving that sometimes the best work happens when no one’s expecting masterpieces—just friends making great music together, bringing out the best in each other, following their instincts wherever they lead.
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