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.

THE JESUS LIZARD | “Hide & Seek”

The Jesus Lizard are the blueprint for so much of the music we love. Their first three albums laid down the groundwork for “noise rock,” a run of masterpieces that are uncompromising in sight and sound, their legacy of deranged charm and volatile brilliance unmatched. Dissolving after a pair of major label albums in the late 90s, the band reemerged live from time to time over the years, each show as unhinged as ever. 26 years after their last album, The Jesus Lizard has returned, their new record Rack due out in September via Ipecac (Melvins, Oxbow, Dälek). Given the years between releases, it’s fair to come into lead single “Hide & Seek” with a degree of caution, but The Jesus Lizard come out swinging, familiar yet inventive. This is a new day and age for the band, but their specific brand of sordid magic remains. Duane Denison’s guitars still peel the paint from the wall, the rhythm section is dense yet and explosive, and David Yow tells a garbled tale of being brutalized by a witch… which is to say it’s a tremendous introduction to what just became our most anticipated album for the remainder of the year.

SHRAPKNEL & CONTROLLER 7 | “Nobody Planning To Leave” LP

We already wrote a bit about ShrapKnel’s new album in our “Out This Week” feature but Nobody Planning To Leave really feels like a landmark release for everyone involved. The duo’s third album for Backwoodz Studioz is firing on all cylinders, from Curly Castro and PremRock’s intricate rhymes and immaculate punchlines to what feels like a career defining moment for producer Controller 7. The grand design of the album’s beats is a sweeping in construction, slipping between hard and psychedelic to warped and bubbling and back again, mining both the glory days of boom-bap hip-hop individualism to futuristic abstract space-age beats. ShrapKnel ride whatever Controller 7 throws into the mix with veteran ease, their rhymes on a swivel of intelligent wordplay, elastic humor, and poetic resolve on another level.

SOUR WIDOWS | “Big Dogs”

With Sour Widows’ full length debut, Revival Of A Friend, out in less than two weeks, “Big Dogs” serves as the album’s final single, and it could be our favorite yet. The record’s impeccable opener brings together everything we love about the Bay Area trio’s music, a song both absurdly beautiful but wrought with tension, built on stunning harmonies and a cathartic release. The expansive structure opens like a void in the earth, erupting with guitars that feel equal parts comforting and violent, capturing the duality in the band’s music, slinking between angst and anguish. Sour Widows explore the nature of perception and strength in the song’s lyrics, but it’s the composition that really drives home the weight and turmoil, captured in moments of gentle reflection and the taut dissolution of apprehension.

SPLIT SYSTEM | “Force Field”

Back in February, Melbourne’s Split System released Vol. 2, easily one of the year’s best punk records, a defiant mix of aggression and exhilaration. The record blasts and thrashes with a sloshed burn, sounding something like Hot Snakes on a bender or your favorite hardcore band dipping their toes into sleazy rock ‘n’ roll glory. While we anxiously await their upcoming US tour dates surrounding this year’s Goner Fest, the band return with “Force Field,” a new ripper recorded for the Born Bad Record Shop 25 Years Anniversary compilation (which also features Sweeping Promises, En Attendant Ana, and The Drin among others). Full of ragged glory and sweet soaked energy, Split System keep their fuse close to detonation at all times, boogying into the harsh night with their twin guitar assault and Jackson Reid Briggs’ brash howling vocals.

STUCK | “Freak Frequency: B-Sides”

For a band whose music could be defined as rigid by design, Chicago’s Stuck have to be one of the most dynamic bands in the modern post-punk orbit. While many of their peers earn their place by locking in and never looking back, it feels like Stuck are always exploring their sound, shifting nuances and textures to create a genuine sense of dexterity. “Moth Joke” and “Shift,” the two songs that comprise Freak Frequency: B-Sides, offer a more atmospheric side of the band, still built on their well-coiled immediacy, but the band trade in their brash and jagged tendencies for more of a discordant impermanence. The band’s usual pointed lyrics are oozing with a deeper sense of dread and disbelief, the spacious construction of the song’s playing into the harsh reality of it all.

Further Listening: