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.

DELIVERY | “Baader Meinhof”

Following last year’s great debut EP and follow-up single, Melbourne quintet Delivery are set to release their full length debut, Forever Giving Handshakes. Due out November 11th via Feel It Records (US), Anti Fade Records and Spoilsport Records (AU/NZ), the band take their already buzzing formula and up the ante with their best set of songs yet. Lead single “Baader Meinhof” (the phenomenon that after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often) is a springy burst of synth punk energy and spaced out warbling at its most insistent. There’s a motorik force to the rhythm and a hard boogie to the song’s thick bass, the low end balanced by the soaring chord progressions and the doubled vocals. The band shout together in perfect unison (with a hook that resolves “I’ve got something else going on, thought you knew me, but you had me wrong”) as the riffs steadily shift over and over in new directions. It’s really something special, shreddy and impossibly tight all the same.

DISCO DOOM | “Mt. Surreal” LP

Heading into 2022, there wasn’t an album I was anticipating more than Disco Doom’s Mt. Surreal, and while that statement could be true for the past six years or so, the time has come and the album has finally arrived. The Swiss quartet, led by Anita Rufer and Gabriele De Mario, return after an eight year absence with a brilliant warmth, finding the comfort in unease. With a history of expansive tonality and a knack for analog recording, Mt. Surreal plays to Disco Doom’s strengths, twisting and subverting expectations with layers of guitars, synths, and rhythms that work in unexpected ways, shifting structures to resonate with new frequencies, often landing a good distance from where they began. Pairing tranquility and dissonance against each other, Disco Doom have the ability to make abrasive sound feel meditative. It’s in that process that everything about the record feels exciting, from the fractured bliss of “Pic Nic,” and the rattling attack of “Patrik” to the blistering patchwork of “Static Bend” and the slow burn beauty of “Clic Clac”. Mt. Surreal is an album best experienced in full, an escape to get lost in.

GREEN/BLUE | “Worry / Gimme Hell”

Minneapolis’ Green/Blue released Paper Thin, their second album of 2022, at the start of the summer., but just in case you thought two full lengths had expended the band’s recorded output for the year, they return with “Worry / Gimme Hell,” a pair of singles originally recorded during the same sessions. The songs strip back the band’s coiled burn for something decidedly more garage. In the spirit of Dead Moon before them, Green/Blue have wrangled the simplicity of “Worry” and “Gimme Hell” to write some of their best songs to date, punk anthems that’ll have you shouting in no time. While they’ve upped the jangle and loosened the density, the duel vocal approach on “Worry” is plenty epic, a big nasty punk song with pop splendor and self-awareness. The vocals pair Annie Sparrows and Jim Blaha together for a riotous gang effect, giving it a sort of last-call at the seedy bar kind of energy. Which is to say, it’s pretty much perfect, a song about the struggle that feels downright triumphant. “Gimme Hell” follows suit, a down but never out call to rise up and fight. A fun one-off from the studio sessions, Green/Blue sound absolutely super-charged.

JUNE MCDOOM | “Stone After Stone”

With “The City,” June McDoom’s debut single, nearly two months old, the New York based musician returns with the announcement of her self-titled EP, due out this October via Temporary Residence (Nina Nastasia, Party Dozen, Mogwai). While pairing together influences from folk, jazz, soul, and reggae legends, the music McDoom writes is uniquely her own, weaves together disparate ideas into fully realized singer/songwriter space. There’s plenty going on within her world, but at the core is her incredible voice, powerful yet gentle, utterly beautiful and seeping with heart and depth. “Stone After Stone” is a perfect encapsulation of McDoom’s hypnotic vocals and her knack for nuance and flittering dynamics, combining moments of surfy guitar warble, thunderous rhythmic touches, finger-picked acoustics, and birdsong, into subtle textures, each adding their own color to sweeping vocal melodies. She’s not afraid to experiment with dynamics, pulling out sounds only to drop them back in, and it’s what makes her an artist you need to be watching.

RIPPED TO SHREDS | "漢奸 (Race Traitor)”

It’s all in the name they say… and well, Ripped To Shreds are certainly painting an appropriate picture, but there’s so much more to the Bay Area death metal band and their name could just be an understatement. Following 2020’s exceptionally destructive 亂 (Luan) LP, the band signed to Relapse Records (Boris, Full of Hell, Yautja) and their long-awaited new album, 劇變 (Jubian), is due October 14th. One of modern death metal’s most anticipated records, the record’s second single, “漢奸 (Race Traitor),” a song about being a minority in America, is a colossal avalanche of dismembered beats, volcanic solos, and guttural vocals that pull from desperation and righteous fury. The guitars turn straight melodic, in a most non-death metal way, before twisting back into the scourge, and the entire progression of it nothing short of amazing. Andrew Lee’s riffs are caustic and everything violenty shifts from one stampede to the next, with the utterly wild dexterity and mutli-faceted speed of drummer Brian Do stealing the show (a near impossible feat).

Further Listening:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (September 12th - September 18th)