by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)

Welcome to FUZZY MEADOWS, our weekly recap of this week's new music. We're sharing our favorite releases of the week in the form of albums, singles, and music videos along with the "further listening" section of new and notable releases from around the web. It's generally written in the early hours of the morning and semi-unedited... but full of love and heart. The list is in alphabetical order and we sincerely recommend checking out all the music we've included. There's a lot of great new music being released. Support the bands you love. Spread the word and buy some new music.

*Disclaimer: We are making a conscious effort not to include any artist in our countdown on back-to-back weeks in order to diversify the feature, so be sure to check the "further listening" as well because it's often of top-notch quality too.

ALL THE SAINTS | “Creak”

Good things come to those who wait and it should be repeated that you can’t rush greatness. All The Saints’ long awaited third record captures them still ruthlessly loud and tonally expansive, their sour dirge-gaze sound still glopped together in-tact. Their return is syrupy slow and hypnotically nuanced, a vortex into impenetrable sound that sprawls and smolders. Lead single “Creak” brings us back into the shadows and dark recesses of All The Saints’ sound with a slow driving rhythm that opens to washes of tension riddled guitar chords, bent and glistening in every direction. As the verses start to unwind and snake through the tall grass, the guitar noise peels aways and the sinister groove is left to sink hopes and accent the howls into doom-influenced shoegaze carnage. It’s a friendly reminder of why All The Saints, in all their reclusive tendencies, remain on the Southeast’s finest and with their new album coming soon, we can only hope for further ear-bleeding activity.

CAVE IN | “Shake My Blood”

The legendary Cave In, one of our favorite bands to ever exist, announced their latest album, Final Transmission, the last record to feature Caleb Scofield on bass (due to his untimely passing). As a true focal point of what makes the band so amazing, Scofield’s monolithic bass tone and crushing sludge progressions gave Cave In their heavy edge, even when the songwriting opts for a not-so-heavy approach. It’s as though he kept them grounded with his earthquaking low end as the guitars soared up into the cosmos. The record, written and performed with Scofield to preserve his performances (and memory) has the band digging back into the colossal space rock of Jupiter, leaving behind much of the experimental carnage of White Silence, a true under-appreciated masterpiece. Cave In remain brilliant however, in any shape and form, and second single “Shake My Blood” is a trip into the beyond with guitars that channel the celestial while Scofield digs deep into the ground with a brutal bass line, the combination in turn being quintessential Cave In.

CRUMB | “Ghostride”

The meteoric rise of Crumb is something special. It’s all happening (seemingly) organically and on the band’s own terms, and it’s well deserved as their specific blend of artistic psych pop has been radiant since their debut EP. With Jinx, their full length debut due in June, the anticipation continues to build on the record’s latest single, “Ghostride,” an immediate earworm that is as direct as we’ve heard the band yet. The gorgeously disorienting intro lasts about ten seconds before the band slink into a laid back jazzy groove that sways with the incredible vocal melodies and the swirling blissed out whir of guitars and textural synths. Just as you’ve become transfixed (it happens pretty much instantly), the song is over, every moment tightened to perfection, and we can’t wait to hear how it fits in context to the album as a whole.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH & RZA | “On That Sht Again”

If you’ve been paying attention to Post-Trash you know we don’t get excited about a lot of modern hip-hop, but when it comes to new music from any of the members of Wu-Tang, we’re always excited (Inspectah Deck’s Czarface has probably released our favorite hip-hop album every year for past few years). In celebration of the exceptional four-part Wu-Tang documentary Of Mics and Men that is currently airing on Showtime, the group have released a new compilation EP. The record is pretty slim (and is missing several members), but what is there, is certainly worth a listen and the one pre-release single, “On That Sht Again” is a great reminder why Ghostface Killah has always been one of most colorful MCs to ever do it. Joined together by RZA (the two lived together as the group was formed pre-36 Chambers), the two go in over a sparse piano and snare beat, their signature styles complimenting one another all these years later, with Ghostface still providing vivid imagery in a way only he can (“jumping out of big shit with Benetton pajamas on, line my soldiers up, strategize, then I move my pawns”), even coming back for a second verse.

LUNGBUTTER | “Intrinsic“

On the last episode of the podcast I mentioned something about how “RIYL” tags can be dangerous when they evoke your favorite bands and then the music falls short. The following day after that episode was recorded, I was introduced to Montreal’s Lungbutter, a band whose press release included a “RIYL” of Melvins, Magik Markers, Flipper, and more that immediately piqued my interest. That combination of influences paints a very specific sound in my mind and Lungbutter are very much up for the task on Honey, their new album due out later this month on Constellation Records. The band’s brand of art-punk is brilliantly dismal and sparse without much in the way of melodies. “Intrinsic,” the second single from the record is minimal and repetitive, the slow dirge of detuned guitars and near-spoken vocals mesmerizing in their simplicity and their brash resolve. It’s not the band’s most explosive song, but it does eventually roar into full atonal meltdown. There’s a lot of tension at play here and I like to believe Lungbutter would make any of those “RIYL” bands proud.

SPIRITS HAVING FUN | “Auto-Portrait”

We were introduced to Chicago’s Spirits Having Fun last Spring and were blown away by “Electricity Explorer” (which has since been re-released with a great music video). Having mentioned the band’s debut album would be released in the “not-too-distant future,” the day is soon approaching with Auto-Portrait due out next month via Ramp Local. The record’s title track and opening song is a jittery and chaotic piece of tangled art-pop, the kind of sound the band (which includes members of Tredici Bacci, Wei Zhongle, and Cowboy Band) do so well. Led by Katie McShane (guitar/vocals) and her visionary approach to deconstructed pop, “Auto-Portrait” sounds on the verge of collapse or collision at all times, the interwoven guitars and bass taking a funky tonality before diverging again and again, shifting at the speed the average person blinks. They keep it altogether throughout, a tight and dizzying bit of wonderment that’s sewn together with the left-field “chorus” of “three boxes, three sweatshirts, two carpets, five parrots”. Sounds weird? It is, and we love it.

TAIWAN HOUSING PROJECT | “Toxic Garbage People”

The ever wild no-wave parade of Taiwan Housing Project blew us away on 2017’s Veblen Death Mask, a record so unequivocally abrasive and deranged, it demands the highest regards. There was a lot to take in and a lot to process. Engaging and thoroughly freaked out, the record was an onslaught of sordid grooves and blistering noise… each listen unveiling something new and just as we’ve come to make sense of it all, the band return with a new record, Sub-Language Trustees, due out next month on Ever/Never Records. Their latest single “Toxic Garbage People” comes at a time where the world is littered with toxic garbage people, and the song is every bit as repulsive as you might hope, a swarm of instrumentation colliding head-on in a dense wall of atonal noise. As unwieldy as it all sounds, there’s an anthemic quality to the vocals, pulling it together to sound something like the blown out remains of the B-52s or Pylon sometime after the nuclear apocalypse.

TORCHE | “Slide”

As one of our favorite bands since we first heard the melodic sludge of “Charge of the Brown Recluse” nearly 15 years ago, Torche have continued to amaze us with each and every album, keeping the sunshine in the dirt of their “doom pop” sound with the heaviest of riffs and the most syrupy of melodies. Admission, the band’s first new album in four years, is due out via Relapse in July, sure to be the perfect album for the Summer, the band’s enormous hooks and pounding guitars simply sticking in the hot air. Lead single “Slide” opens with a stuttered riff that nearly reminds of Helmet, but this is signature Steve Brooks, a balance of primal aggression, impossibly thick fuzz, and of course brilliant swooning harmonies. With a winding solo and a relentless rhythmic stampede, the hook’s are infectious, locking themselves in wherever they can, and holding on for dear life.

UROCHROMES | “Milieux”

It’s a real pleasure to watch Urochromes get weird throughout Trope House. The band, commonly associated as a hardcore band, are using their full length debut to show just how dynamic their buzzsaw guitars and blistering drum machine can be when everything is fried and free of restrictions. “Milieux,” the album’s third single is a grinding blast of d-beat punk that’s flipped and manipulated, flush with the ferocity of hardcore but a sense of humor that lands them closer to Devo and the world of upcoming tour mates The Uranium Club. It’s boisterous and brash, but it’s clear they are having fun without taking themselves all too serious. As the opening track of the album, it’s an introduction to their warped punk with plenty of “ooh oohs” and shredded riffs that get gnarlier with each overdriven stomp, but as far as a sign of all to come, its an impossible task when Urochromes are letting themselves run wild, exploring just how experimental and artistic minimalist punk can be.

WATER FROM YOUR EYES + THIS IS LORELEI | “Break” + “Freaking Me In“

Water From Your Eyes have emerged a staple of the Brooklyn DIY scene, a band that pushes the “indie rock” tag into the unknown with electronic dance beats and hypnotic repetition. Rachel Brown’s voice and Nate Amos’ guitar are the human elements of their sound, but their motorik grooves and club friendly rhythms swarm in the name of the digital age. “Break,” a preview of the band’s upcoming album (due out later this year) is a mesmerizing near ten minute odyssey of manipulated electronic bass and fractured melodies, an experimental journey into the recesses of skittering drones and jittery post-punk informed pop. There’s nothing quite like Water From Your Eyes, and as the band continue to push the envelope, all possibilities remain open. This Is Lorelei, the nuanced and textured solo project of Amos, shifts shapes more than most. It’s progressive in nature for that reason, but the sound from release to release is anyone’s guess as the project is known for its undefinable trajectory and Amos’ penchant for subverting expectations. The brilliantly deconstructed “Freaking Me In” uses deep bass and backmasked rhythms together to set the cool ambiance, a celestial structure for Amos’ warbling voice and computerized machinations to lushly envelop. The song warps itself into one unpredictable moment after the next, never moving to obvious resolutions, constantly pushing but remaining silky and strangely smooth.

Further Listening:

MAY 06 - MAY 12:

MAY 13 - MAY 19:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (May 6th - May 19th)