by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_) and Patrick Pilch (@pratprilch)

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.

DRAHLA | “Default Parody”

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly five years since Leeds’ Drahla released their full length debut, but here we are. Thankfully, the wait for their new album is nearly over as angeltape arrives in April via Captured Tracks (Locate S,1, Widowspeak, Scout Gillett). While they’ve teased out early versions of some of the tracks over the past two years, the album’s announcement comes paired with “Default Parody,” a bent and brooding art-rock song with steely post-punk determination. Drahla often encapsulate the best moments of both Lithics and experimental pioneers This Heat, opting for tangled webs of rhythmic knots instead of easily presented melodic ideas. They do it in a way that remains engaging as “Default Parody” is still oozing with memorable attack and dissonant charms.

MULVA | “Ward Them Off”

Providence mega group Mulva (members of Kal Marks, Bethlehem Steel, Ex-Breathers, and Baglady) are back with their full-length follow-up to last year’s crushing Seer EP. Bitter Form is due out March 1st via Sad Cactus, and if “Ward Them Off” is any indicator of what’s to come, it’s best to keep an ear out. This shit is heavy, heavy. Bitter Form was recorded with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets (The Body, Lightning Bolt, Fang Island), and its lead single introduces the new alliance in punishing fashion. “Ward Them Off” blends expansive doom and straight up alternative rock for the excellent, new-sound Mulva. Drum and bass drive the song’s dirge-anthem chorus, thundering beneath Christina Puerto’s remarkably high-flying vocals. The band sounds impressively massive, and this song just kicks ass. - Patrick Pilch

RICK RUDE | “P2PU”

We’ve heard the great “Winded Whale” (with Ben Troy on vocals) and the great “Square” (an instrumental track) and with a week to go before the release of Rick Rude’s new album, we’re finally treated to “P2PU,” a great new single lead by the band’s vocalist/bassist Jordan Holtz. The New Hampshire based band can do it all, and they’re busy proving that to be true on their third album, Laverne. Holtz and co. get sprightly and animated throughout “P2PU,” a song about biting your tongue and working to please others over yourself. Under snaking melodies and sharp hooks, this one bobs and sputters, takes a twisting approach to guitar riffs, tightly coiling them into twangy loops that recall that glory of early Built To Spill. Holtz’s vocals cut through the dizzying warble, her voice sounding brilliant as emphasis comes in and out of focus.

ROBBER ROBBER | “Sea or War”

There’s a lot of great music coming out of Burlington, Vermont these days and Robber Robber feel like the live wire spark at the center. Case in point, the quartet’s new single “Sea or War,” a brilliant song mixing swooning psych and detached dream-pop built on a colossal drum fill absolutely permeating the structure. There’s nothing like a great amorphous psych-pop tune derived from a looping fill (see: Baked’s “Mick Jagger”) and drummer Zack James sets the pace in constant motion from the start. Paired together with Nina Cates’ weary but gorgeous melody and acidic guitars, Robber Robber sound both celestial and grounded in motorik chaos. With piercing guitars leads and warm vocals, this one is easy to get lost in, a triumphantly composed ripper, both dreamy and full of wonder.

SKELETAL REMAINS | “To Conquer The Devout”

When things feel all too bleak, you can always unwind with the natural catharsis of death metal. You think I’m joking, but I’m not. Detach from it all, and let it rip. Skeletal Remains keep sharing singles and we keep writing about them, simple as that. The Los Angeles based death metal band are set to release their fifth album, Fragments of the Ageless, in March, a relentless monstrosity of deviant heaviness and brain-melting riffs. “To Conquer The Devout,” the album’s third single is impressively groove based, with a deep pocket laid to waste prior to complete sonic devastation. Once the ever shifting blast beats come hurtling forward, Skeletal Remains are locked into the supremely evil riffs, ready to erupt with not one but two tremor inducing solos. It’s diverse and crushing, a stampede composed in dismal movements.

VANISHING TWIN | “Life Drummer”

While we remain engrained in the world built on Vanishing Twin’s Afternoon X, released last October, the London based trio return with Life Drummer, their illustrious entry into this year’s Sub Pop Singles Club. The experimental pop band has been transforming post-punk, kosmische, and discombobulated dream-pop with ingenious results for the better part of the last decade, and their new single remains as explorative as ever, comprised of three songs that glide and contort between glitchy minimalism and effervescent lounge rock displacement. “Life Drummer” revolves around a sinewy beat from Valentina Magaletti, adorned with patchwork samples and a serene split between alien melodies and stark mechanical pulse as hypnotic as it is fluid.

Further Listening:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (January 22nd - January 28th)