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.

FUTURE SUCK | “Simulation” LP

Hot damn! Future Suck’s debut album, Simulation, is a great listen, built on pissed off hardcore and old school punk. Every listen though is so damn fun. The Melbourne band (which includes members of Blonde Revolver and Super X among others) play with an unfiltered fury, raging from social concerns to poor relationships, trading bad behavior for an assault of the senses. They dig into riffs and stampede through drums, as Grace Gibson’s vocals truly tie all the shredding together, with such captivating disdain and charismatic menace, it feels like a real joy to hear her yelp and shout. Even at blistering tempos, the band create memorable songs, weaving through walls of distorted guitars and an ever present pummeling with so much personality. It’s a no bullshit punk record, just off-kilter enough to keep up the propulsive energy, locking in your attention with each rattled moment.

HELLRAZOR | “Heaven’s Gate” LP

We’ve said it before and I’m sure we’ll say it again but Michael Falcone only writes hits. With a vast knowledge of the radio friendly classics (and beyond), his band Hellrazor make brilliantly raw punk songs that feel “pop” at their core, without watering down aggression or volume. The band’s long awaited sophomore album, Heaven’s Gate, comes six years after Satan Smile, but upon a few listens, you’d swear these songs have been ingrained in your head your entire life. The songs are all buzzing with overdriven guitars and thick melodic density, tangled with enormous hooks and earworm guitar harmonies to ensure maximum impact on songs like “Globbed” and “Jello Stars”. It’s not all an avalanche of accessibility however, as the band definitely turn toward some of the 80’s and 90s weirder moments on songs like “Demon Hellride,” channeling the Melvins and Butthole Surfers in their prime, and the slow dripped Nirvana-esque sludge pop of “Phantasm”. It’s a study in great songwriting, with songs that stick like glue.

HYPERDONTIA | “Season of Rot”

Released last November, Hideous Entity, Hyperdontia’s sophomore album was easily one of 2021’s absolute best metal albums, cementing the band among the finest (and filthiest) that modern death metal has to offer. With members split between Denmark and Turkey, the band haven’t let distance prevent them from becoming a juggernaut of brutal force and explosive riffs, and if you’re not still buried under the weight of Hideous Entity, the band have returned on a split together with Septage, a Denmark based trio that includes Hyperdontia’s Malik Çamlıca. “Season of Rot” is everything that’s great about Hyperdontia, crushing out the gate with a colossal pillaging, ripping into a devastating yet somewhat psychedelic solo about twenty seconds into the song (and it’s not the last one), devolving any sense of structure for mountainous heaviness that really does demolish everything in sight. By the time the song has reached the minute and a half mark, the band has changed riffs and structure numerous times, dazzling with every twist and turn, while presenting something rampantly heavy.

KAL MARKS | “My Name Is Hell” LP

People can often be hesitant to embrace change, preferring stagnation and the familiar as a comfort. Sometimes though, change is for the better, case in point, Kal Marks’ new album My Name Is Hell. The Boston band’s four full length album (depending on how you count their releases) brings with it a new line-up, a new sonic fidelity, and what can be viewed as their most assured work to date. It’s not to say the old line-up(s) were anything short of incredible (they’ve always been a phenomenal band), but there’s a rejuvenation that can be felt with new life breathed into a project that’s been pushing forward for over a decade. The main differences come in realization of having duel guitars, with Carl Shane joined by Christina Puerto, giving the band a deeper sense of melody amid abrasion. There’s still plenty of sludge to enjoy and embrace, but the signature rhythmic stomp of Kal Marks’ songs has been transplanted into a wider array of melodic earworms and a sordid take on the overtly catchy as opposed to brute dissonance.

TROPICAL FUCK STORM | “Ann” (The Stooges cover)

Melbourne’s Tropical Fuck Storm don’t ever seem to rest, a fact that we’ve grown increasingly appreciative of since their masterpiece debut album was released four years ago. It hasn’t been that long that they’ve been an active band and yet their catalog boasts three impossibly great full length albums, a pandemic made live album/film, a collaborative EP with the also prolific King Gizzard, a wide array of 7” singles, and coming soon, an EP of their own. Moonburn, due out at the end of the month via Joyful Noise Recordings, features two original TFS songs and two covers, which the band have proven more than capable of throughout their scattered singles. “Ann,” the first single is a The Stooges cover, a song that originally took on a sort of proto-sludge crawl, trudging toward sort of a sweet depravity. The TFS cover sort of bends the reality of the original, with Fiona Kitschin handling lead vocals, the song is drawn through the art-damaged surreality that embraces the Tropical Fuck Storm sound, weaving somewhere between dream and nightmare. The video, which finds the band as puppets is ever so strange and wonderful, devolving in time with the song’s descent into chaos.

Further Listening:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (August 1st - August 7th)