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.

ARBOR LABOR UNION | “Yonder” LP

Open your mind and zone out, way out, together with Atlanta’s great Arbor Labor Union. The past few years have found the band embracing their Southern roots, channeling their way through cosmic Americana while retaining their weirdo punk sense of adventure. They’ve locked in, exploring krautrock and spliced and frayed psych, while maintaining the fluid nature and rolling boogie of classic rock and twangy punk. Yonder, the band’s latest album is a spiritual successor to 2020’s New Petal Instants, picking up the natural essence and continuing to warp repetitive structures with knotted progressions and disjointed rhythms, landing with a complex choogle that feels as breezy as the front-porch air. Songs like the rattled title track and early single “Hovering Stone” recall the best work of the Meat Puppets, but the itchy tempos (“Undoom’d”) and elastic melodies (“Real Beasts”) of Arbor Labor Union feel unique, pulled from a southern fried core and filtered through a decade of DIY punk pedigree. Up the twang, up the punx… Arbor Labor Union prove it to be possible.

BLACK THOUGHT & EL MICHELS AFFAIR | “Grateful”

Cheat Codes, the collaborative album from Black Thought and Danger Mouse, was easily one of 2022’s best albums, and with it still fresh in our mind, Thought is back with another one, this time teaming up with modern soul staples El Michels Affair. For anyone unfamiliar, the NYC based group is led by Leon Michels, who has been a founding member of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band (Charles Bradley’s band), and Lee Fields & The Expressions. It’s an unmatched ouevre of modern soul, but El Michels Affair is best known for Enter The 37th Chamber, the group’s live orchestrations of classic Wu-Tang beats. With The Roots already considered to be hip-hop’s greatest live band, Michels decided to go another route for their upcoming album Glorious Game, instead recording his own music to chop and sample, making traditional hip-hop beats with his own recorded framework. The result is potent on “Grateful,” a reggae centric boom-bap cut with big drums and plenty of distorted melodies for Black Thought to lace with poetic lyricism that slips between personal, confrontational, and braggadocios, with an ever present sense of veteran wisdom.

MULVA | “Shouldn’t Fear The Seer”

Providence’s Mulva played a handful of shows last year, setting up the framework for the songs that would eventually become their debut EP, a re-introduction to Christina Puerto’s (Kal Marks, Bethlehem Steel) songwriting. Pulling together a band of frequent collaborators and likeminded musicians, she’s joined by Carl Shane (Kal Marks), Adam Berkowitz (Ex-Breathers), and Patrick Ronayne (Bethlehem Steel, Baglady), creating an instant chemistry amid the band’s downward sludge. With their Seer EP due out on January 20th, “Shouldn’t Fear The Seer” marks a colossally heavy first listen. Mulva’s sound is undeniably heavy, but beyond that, the band are able to skirt around most pre-determined sub-genres, creating music that feels intuitive more anything else. “Shouldn’t Fear The Seer” comes crashing out the gate with a legitimately evil riff, pouring down like black rain over the rhythmic force. The band all play into the dirge with aplomb, Puerto and Shane’s guitars trail like torrential clouds, Ronayne’s bass and Berkowitz’s drums feel like a true backbone, coloring the song at times, but holding together the destruction.

OOZING WOUND | “Hypnic Jerk”

It’s only January and there’s a good chance that Chicago’s Oozing Wound will release the best noise rock album of the year, which says a lot since prior to this album, nearly no one would classify the trio as a noise rock band. Genre lines are shaky at best (consider it a broad frame of reference), but throughout the impeccable We Cater To Cowards, Oozing Wound have left most of their thrashier tendencies behind for the sound of In Utero’s corpse re-thought, re-spawned, and built into their own Frankenstein’s monster of unrelenting aggression, snide humor, and the undefinable weight of massive low-end. Where their lead single showed the corrosive-grunge-at-its-most-reckless element, “Hypnic Jerk” feels genuinely explosive, and we’re all left standing in the smoldering wreckage. The bass and drums hit so hard it feels like a warning, violently shaking us from complacency and hammering in sense like nails to the skull. There’s a sense of ruptured earth, a disturbance that can’t be ignored, with a plodding immediacy and general lack of melodic attention, this one is swarming tension, festering in the shadows after a relentless bashing.

PURLING HISS | “Yer All In My Dreams”

It’s been four years since the last Purling Hiss EP (Interstellar Blue) and seven years since the trio’s last full length (High Bias) but the wait is soon to be over as the band return with Drag On Girard, a new record, due out March 24th via Drag City Records (Hen Ogledd, Meg Baird, Glyders). The years since have seen Mike Polizze busy with solo records and the welcome return of Birds of Maya, but judging from lead single “Yer All In My Dreams,” the time apart from Purling Hiss seems to have reinvigorated the band. The album’s opener is the sheer definition of a barn burner, with caterwauling guitars blasting out the gate and only getting louder as the song progresses. This is a ripper of the finest order, essentially embedded on a massive, unflinching, screaming guitar solo that whips and soars from start to finish. Sure, comparisons can be made, but when’s the last time that any of Purling Hiss’ influences decided to shred quite like this? It’s a triumphant blast of non-stop riff magic, warm crackling psych pop, and gluey hooks, capturing the best of Purling Hiss with a rejuvenated sense of muscle and inescapable melody.

SHANA CLEVELAND | “Faces in the Firelight”

There’s a natural beauty throughout Shana Cleveland’s upcoming solo album that feels plucked from the land, fitting for a record self-described as “a supernatural love album set in the California wilderness.” Best known for her work in La Luz, Cleveland’s solo efforts are majestic and haunting, like a trip to the desert as the sun sets over the boundless landscape, filled with scenic beauty and gorgeous arrangements. Manzanita, due out March 10th via Hardly Art (Lala Lala, My Idea, Chastity Belt), maneuvers from the more psychedelic folk elements of the brilliant Night of the Worm Moon and shifts toward a serene Americana feel, with Cleveland’s lullaby-adjacent songwriting reaching new heights as she grapples with love at its most profound ahead of the birth of her son. She describes “Faces In The Firelight,” a song she wrote while pregnant, coming together as she watched her partner (and bandmate) Will Sprott’s silhouette attend to a fire in the dark late into the night, conceiving the ultimate act of love as waiting for their eventual reunion. The sound of the composition matches the sentiment, awash in lush strings, delicate finger picked acoustics, and a gentle rhythmic pulse.

ULTHAR | “Saccades”

Like a cataclysmic eruption somewhere deep in space, Oakland’s Ulthar return with a celestial brutality, a reign of chaos, and mountainous depravity that seems to threaten to swallow existence whole. The band are simultaneously releasing two new companion albums on February 17th via 20 Buck Spin (Daeva, Acephalix, Majesties) - Anthronomicon (comprised of songs of a standard length) and Helionomicon (a record with two single side-length tracks), each an onslaught of the band’s signature blend of death metal and black metal, delivered with mind numbing dexterity and utterly jaw dropping technicality that always feels warranted rather than forced. The riffs are in constant motion, forever evolving as the rhythms stampede, trample, and decimate all in their path. The records are both amazing. Ulthar have created a tornado of carnage, spiraling into the own sordid abyss. “Saccades” is the second single from Anthronomicon, a song that spews forth with demonic fury, diving into a cavalcade of ever-shifting riffs, unglued progressions, and some of the most bloodthirsty drumming we’ve heard in years.

Further Listening:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (January 9th - January 15th)