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.

ALIEN NOSEJOB | “Cold Bare Facts”

We love the ever shifting approach to Alien Nosejob’s music. You never know exactly what the next release might sound like, but you can always rest assured it will be great. Jake Robertson follows his inspirations like someone flipping through their record collection might, sometimes you lean toward post-punk, sometimes garage pop. For the group’s latest 7” single, Cold Bare Facts, Alien Nosejob is once again embracing hardcore, but where the HC45 EPs and Once Again The Past… records moved in reckless speed, “The Executioner” and “West Side Story” are content as mid-pace marauders. Built on the rattling assault of a drum machine, the songs sound enormous and triumphantly rusty, a barrage of guitars primed for peak carnage. Addressing police corruption in Australia, Alien Nosejob sounds justifiably enraged.

CUSP | “Window”

Chicago’s Cusp are a great band that writes great songs. They’ve never sounded better than they do throughout Thanks So Much, a collection of illuminated alternative rock gems, dense yet sweet, distorted with gorgeous harmonies and twin guitars. Jen Bender’s songs balance emotion with sonic density, pushing and pulling at the shape to create something that’s instantly engaging, built on slight nuances and enormous earworms. “Window,” the EP’s centerpiece is a prime example, wistful one moment and sludgy the next. With warbling keys that create a disorienting touch, Cusp quickly come out swinging, the sound akin to brash pop, flipping between a series of impressive hooks at a rapid pace. Over gentle shifts and spikes in harmony and the amorphous melody of Bender’s gorgeous vocals, the song seems to be a reminder not to compare yourself to others, a practice often easier said than done.

EN ATTENDANT ANA | “Magical Lies” EP

On the one year anniversary of Principia, one of last year’s absolute best new albums, En Attendant Ana return with their contribution to the legendary Sub Pop Singles Club in the form of Magical Lies, a new EP that pairs two songs together with a short but effective interlude. The band’s stunning blend of lightly psychedelic indie pop and fuzzy krautrock rhythms is captured with a vivid radiance on title track “Magical Lies,” a song that really unfolds around reverberating riffs and the band’s lush layered swoon. It’s a dense composition that manages to sound breezy, thanks in large part to Margaux Bouchaudon’s unwavering vocal melodies. “Teeny Tiny Tyche” offers more of a loungy jazz atmosphere, a song that calls back to lullabies and youthful innocence with long sustain and dreamy experimentalism.

GATECREEPER | “Caught In The Treads”

Having already proved themselves to be one of modern death metal’s best and most consistent band over the last decade, Gatecreeper emerged during the pandemic with An Unexpected Reality, an album that merged their classic OSDM fury with the brute thud of hardcore. It wasn’t necessarily a sign of things to come, but a chance for the band to play around with their sound. In the three years since they’ve been writing and recording a highly anticipated new album, due out at some point this year, and they’ve proceeded the record’s announcement with “Caught In The Treads,” a song that steamrolls ever forward, demolishing all in its path. There’s a degree of melody to be found in the guitars, but Gatecreeper still sound thoroughly ruthless, the low end pounding and pummeling, a clamoring dirge of cavernous bile.

GOAT GIRL | “Ride Around”

We consider Goat Girl’s self-titled album to be a classic debut. Three years later Goat Girl released On All Fours, a record that shares little in common with what came before it, and yet we might love that one even more. That is to say that there’s a brilliance inherent in whatever thread Goat Girl choose to unravel. The band’s third album, Below The Waste, flips the script yet again, moving away from swarming hooks and sun spotted sonics for something more detached and deconstructed, a record that embraces arty minimalism and experimentation. “Ride Around” could be the record’s perfect introduction, it’s a song that seems to ease between where they’ve been and where they’re going. Revolving around Lottie Pendlebury’s signature low and smoky vocals and a wave of dazzling harmonies, the song brings a natural grace to a sludgy and disconnected structure.

MISTER GOBLIN | “Goodnight Sun”

By splitting time between a full band framework and a solo project, Mister Goblin is able to explore different sounds and ideas as they arise. 2022’s Bunny LP tended to pull toward a heavier sound with a line-up of Chicago DIY heavy hitters joining Sam Goblin for the bulk of the record, but it wasn’t without his signature heart and humor. Two years later, Mister Goblin returns with Frog Poems, an album that opts to split the difference between gentle solo tracks and the density of the band. Due out April 26th via Spartan Records (Allen Epley, Rip Room), lead single “Goodnight Sun” takes a not so sunny approach toward reimagining “Goodnight Moon,” built on lyrics emotional lyrics delivered with a plastered on smirk. The arrangement is dynamic, balanced with a heart rendering melancholy and a well-crafted shimmer.

PARSNIP | “The Light”

It’s hard to feel anything but ecstatic about the return of Melbourne’s Parsnip, the band’s psychedelic pop beaming like a beacon of joy. Five years after their excellent debut, When The Tree Bears Fruit, the quartet are back with Behold, a record that plays to the band’s many strengths and expands upon their syrupy sweet songwriting. Due out April 26th via Anti Fade Records (Uranium Club, Alien Nosejob, R.M.F.C.) and Upset The Rhythm (Screensaver, Vintage Crop, Water Machine), the album’s lead single “The Light” is a jolt of garage punk energy wrapped in harmonic pop bliss. Centered around the start of a new day, a reset of the night before, “The Light” comes rushing in, jangling and impossibly catchy, Parsnip instantly create inescapable hooks, eventually bursting out for a solo that feels beamed down from the sun itself.

PUBLIC ACID | “Deadly Struggle” LP

Without warning comes the barbaric return of North Carolina’s Public Acid, one of hardcore punk’s absolute best. While last year gave us the band’s great Beat Session tape, it’s been four years since the brilliant Condemnation EP and yet their artistically filthy take on hardcore sounds more corrosive now than ever. Deadly Struggle, their latest album, is a juggernaut of blistering riffs (seriously, listen to “Ignorance”) over sludgy primitive rhythms and delightfully deranged vocals, garbled and violent, in the best of ways. There’s a relentless force and sense of upheaval throughout the record, a righteous indignation that batters and fries the senses with a controlled sense of chaos and brutality that feels both inventive yet sonically disgusting. Crusty, damaged, and equal parts primal and arty, Public Acid can’t be stopped.

URANIUM CLUB | “Viewers Like You”

For all the tension built upon Infants Under The Bulb’s first two singles, it would be fair to assume that Minneapolis’ Uranium Club would explode sooner or later. Contents can only be held under pressure for so long. “Viewers Like You” is one of those moments when The Club let loose, a song that quickly works itself into twin guitar knots together with the impossibly tight rhythm section. Joined by their new horn section, the fantastically animated story is punctuated by clamor of the brass and the squiggling dissolution of the structure before it whips right back into a marching frenzy. “Viewers Like You” is a great example of Uranium Club’s magic, a combustible song that’s razor sharp but not without as elastic range. They pull and contract to the point where it seems it could all snap, but the band are far too focused, the song’s clean sound rides the avalanche with a technical savagery juxtaposed by sardonic charm.

USA NAILS | ”The Sun In The Sands”

We’ve been anxiously awaiting Feel Worse since it was announced back in November and thankfully the wait is nearly over, the record due to arrive next month via One Little Independent (Bad Breeding, Crass, Björk). With their sixth album in the past ten years on the way, USA Nails sound as hungry as ever, the London based band as unique as they are vicious. While so much of the “noise rock” world can seem to encompass a lot of the same, USA Nails are wildly dynamic, rooted as deeply in post-punk and no wave as they are impenetrable post-hardcore. “The Sun In The Sands” is a particularly swarming new track, a song that grinds out knotted guitars and seering distortion over a complex pummel and Gareth Thomas’ howling vocals. The lyrics take a biting look at dysfunctional neighbors, acidic vomit and all.

Further Listening:

FEBRUARY 12 - FEBRUARY 18:

FEBRUARY 19 - FEBRUARY 25:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (February 12th - February 25th)