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.

BUILT TO SPILL | “When The Wind Forgets Your Name“ LP

A lot has changed over the past thirty years but Built To Spill remain impossibly consistent. While there are detractors that would say the band’s latest album, When The Wind Forgets Your Name is the “same ol’ Built To Spill,” it’s in that ability to continuously create songs that feel timeless that keeps them astounding. Sure, you could make an argument that there’s a formula to it, but as Doug Martsch has continuously shifted the line-up over the past thirteen years or so, it’s about experimenting to reach that formula with less, the band paired down once again to a three piece. Their Sub Pop debut finds Martsch joined by Oruã’s Le Almeida and João Casaes, frequent tour mates of the band who have built their own loyal following in Brazil and beyond. The results are an album full of big fuzz, bigger hooks, and Martch’s signature heart-on-his-sleeve warble. The sound is familiar but the new songs are engaging, memorable, and ripping with joyously weary guitars. It’s a reminder to long-term fans why Built To Spill has always been one of indie rock’s most legendary bands and an album solid enough to make new lifelong fans in the process.

DEERHOOF | “My Lovely Cat!”

These past years have been hard on everyone but you wouldn’t know it as a Deerhoof fan. Since the Spring of 2020, the band have shared no less than five new records - two exceptional studio albums, two exceptional live albums, and maybe the world’s most unique “covers” album (which still feels like a strange way to describe Love-Lore). The only thing missing was the band’s explosive live performances, but thankfully, the band returned to the stage this year and have been dropping jaws with every show since as they once again spread amazement across the globe. With new tour dates comes new music and “My Lovely Cat!” is a truly triumphant Deerhoof song, taking new shapes with repeat listens. Satomi Matsuzaki wrote the lyrics entirely in Japanese, capturing her sense of humor as she sings about her new cat, starting social media for it, and “likes and loves expected”. The band are in incredible form musically (as always) as they gallop into the fray one moment and dart through skronky grooves the next, the song contorting with progressions that feel natural despite their hard turning complexity.

FIEVEL IS GLAUQUE | “Go Down Softly” + “The River”

With their tour in support of Stereolab in progress, Fievel Is Glauque return with a new two song single featuring a brand new track and another that we’ll call… new again. The two songs, “Go Down Softly” and “The River” capture much of the majesty of Zach Phillips and Ma Clément’s project, blending together wistful jazz fusion and lo-fi experimental pop. The songs are immaculately arranged by Phillips, but they still capture the elements and an air of live performance, keeping a breezy atmosphere as they spike and dash through dream pop lushness and the sense of avant-garde unpredictability. These songs are both lulling despite wide ranging dynamics, a testament to Clément’s sense of melody and the players’ ability to weave and maneuver without abrasion or discordance. Fievel Is Glauque’s music exists in its own world, a magical place with elevator music and prog go hand-in-hand, a place where dreams come true and all is seemingly at ease.

JOBBER | “Entrance Theme”

Brooklyn’s Jobber have come out swinging on their debut single “Entrance Theme,” a smash hit if there ever was one. The wrestling themed band is led by Kate Meizner (Hellrazor, Maneka, The Glow, Potty Mouth), an incredibly gifted songwriter who has spent many years playing the “jobber” in friends’ bands, stepping out into the limelight for the first time. “Entrance Theme” proves that it’s about damn time too, with massive earworm hooks and infectious fuzz that’s both sweet and tough, crushing and alluring. Joined by Mike Falcone (Hellrazor, Speedy Ortiz, Ovlov), the duo recorded their Hell In A Cell EP playing into the wrestling gimmick but their songs go far deeper than their love for pro (and amateur) wrestling. “Entrance Theme,” written as Meizner’s conceived wrestling walk-out theme, is a song about climate change and do-nothing politicians who watch as the world heats and crumbles. The guitars swarm with harmonies that would make The Rentals blush as Jobber let the fuzz rip directly into your stream of consciousness.

MARINA ALLEN “Halfway Home”

Los Angeles would seem to be more than just a home for Marina Allen, but the city and its musical past feel partly engrained in the singer/songwriter’s music. Taking cues from the Laurel Canyon sound that gave the world Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and CSNY, Allen’s music touches upon the folk greats, but goes her own direction, incorporating elements of lounge-tinged jazz and country twang into her songs. Following last year’s great Candlepower EP, Marina Allen is set to release Centrifics, her stunning full length debut later this week. “Halfway Home” is the album’s third single, a beautiful ballad that relies primarily on the strength of Allen’s voice and songwriting, as she longs for an escape from everything that tires her. It’s a song about getting back to where you feel comfortable, a return to nature, a call for softening as difficult as it can be. With a minimalist piano and drums arrangement (and some stunning harmonies), Marina Allen uses the song to keep her narrative in perpetual motion, steadily moving forward without any hooks or musical refrains. The sweeping motion of it nothing short of beautiful.

MORTUOUS | “Metamorphosis”

After four years, San Jose death metal quartet Mortuous bring us Upon Desolation, the long awaited follow-up to 2018’s Through Wilderness. With a line-up that features current and former members of Necrot, Evulse, and Exhumed among many others and tours with Left To Die, Full of Hell, and beyond, they stay busy, and their collective experience brings a colossal force of filth and primordial sludge throughout their upcoming album, due out this week via Carbonized Records. Following lead single “Graveyard Rain,” the band return with the lumbering “Metamorphosis,” and it’s not just a clever name. The brute force of the track moves from monolithic heaviness at death doom crawl into gut twisting destruction, blasting into a foreboding chug before an earthquaking solo opens the ground beneath it. Mortuous are patient with their brutality, setting a tone and adding nuance as they slowly lay waste, one gargantuan riff and ear-bleeding solo at a time.

OOZING WOUND | “Minus Tree“ + “Tempus Fuck It”

Three years have passed since Oozing Wound’s last full length, High Anxiety, a record that continued to blend the Chicago trio’s not-always-accurate tag of “thrash” with more visceral elements of noise rock and the expanse of “experimental” hardcore. Genre tags aside, all you need to know is that Oozing Wound play fast, loud, and with unapologetic (yet often tongue-in-cheek) disdain for common bullshit. With a new album complete and in the stupidly lengthy process of being pressed, we’re treated to two new non-album related singles, courtesy of a split 7” with Belgium’s Cocaine Piss via JauneOrange. “Minus Tree” and “Tempus Fuck It” move ever further away from thrash, embracing more of their punk and noise rock inclinations, but the pair of songs are still impenetrably heavy, digging with giant buzzsaw riffs and throat scraping vocal melodies to match. “Tempus Fuck It” sounds gloriously demented and scuzzy, link a Midwestern basement hardcore song boiling over for the outside world, while “Minus Tree” and it’s swarming aggression and psychedelic flourishes pummel with an unlikely hook-fueled Nirvana meets AmRep intensity.

PINK SIIFU & REAL BAD MAN | “Looking For Water” (feat. Boldy James)

Pink Siifu is a true hip-hop polymath, seemingly capable of just about anything, as evidence by his output these past few years. His albums are all highly conceptual, standing on their own as a point in time in his artistry, each adding another side to his legacy from the abrasive noise tendencies and socio-political nature of NEGRO to the Dungeon Family indebted soul of GUMBO’!, and the smoked out record store raps of his collaborations with Fly Anakin. His latest, Real Bad Flights, is a compilation of rap tunes produced entirely by Los Angeles’ Real Bad Man, the production team best known for a pair of Boldy James records. While it’s billed as a compilation, the cohesiveness of it is undeniable and Siifu brings his GKFAM along for the ride, adding another degree to his mind bending hip-hop odyssey. Lead single “Looking For Water” is relatively straight forward but the thick smoke of the beat and Siifu’s laid back delivery feels essential, especially when paired with the hard-nosed verse from James. It’s a reminder to pave your own path, and to just do you.

PJ HARVEY | “Somebody’s Down, Somebody’s Name”

Following what we’ll call “the most welcome catalog reissue campaign” in recent memory, PJ Harvey’s incredible archives remain open with the announcement of the B-Sides, Demos, & Rarities boxset. Due out in November. The 6xLP collection pulls together unreleased recordings with soundtrack appearances, alternate takes, and beyond, a welcome addition of music that wasn’t covered with the recent album demos releases. In anticipation of the release, we’re given a trio of songs - unreleased demos of “Dry” and “Missing” (both of which would appear on 1993’s Rid of Me in their final form) and “Somebody’s Down, Somebody’s Name,” a b-side from 1995’s “Down By The Water” single. The song is built on a raw resonating blues and a dense rhythm, focusing in on the dynamic power of PJ Harvey’s expressive vocals and dark story-telling. It’s a caustic tale of loss, dismal indifference, and a destabilizing inability to make a positive impact. Harvey digs the tension ever deeper, pitting hope against ugly reality.

USA NAILS | “Horror Show”

A noise rock track with a veritable hoard of saxophones? USA Nails’ latest single, “Horror Show,” really goes off the rails in the best of ways. Part of Skin Graft Records’ upcoming Halloween compilation, Sounds To Make You Shudder, the song brings the very real terror that is the world around us. It’s blunt and visceral, with lyrical repetition that’s offset by an impressive clamoring of manipulated guitars, buzzing in and out of focus, peeling our senses back only to overload and disorient reality to its breaking point. The rug has been pulled out and we are all now living in USA Nails’ extended dissonance. “Horror Show” is violently abrasive, with drums that accent the attack of the corrosive guitars. The band offer stop/start moments of respite just to collide deeper into the frenzy of bleeding sax and a relentless onslaught of patched together chaos. It’s truly something to behold, with all encompassing ferocity that’ll have your ears ringing in no time.

Further Listening:

AUGUST 29 - SEPTEMBER 04:

SEPTEMBER 05 - SEPTEMBER 11:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (August 29th - September 11th)