Out This Week | Post-Trash Highlights

As we all head into the weekend, we’re happy to share a few of our favorite new releases, out this week (in splendid alphabetical order). The write-ups are all kept brief and bite sized, snippets to catch your interest. There’s a lot of great music out every week and these are just some of the many we think you should check out.

Featured

ANKHLEJOHN | "Grace Given"

Veblen Goods
Spotify | Apple

DC hip-hop heavyweight ANKHLEJOHN is back with his third record of the year, GRACE GIVEN. A companion to January's GIVE GRACE, the bars throughout this all too brief EP feel laser focused. Big Lordy is dropping knowledge, taking jabs, and creating raw yet brilliant grown ass rap tunes all in one fell swoop. Balancing a hard as nails delivery with thoughtful, often poignant lyrics, and soulful introspection, ANKHLEJOHN is at the top of his game.

CAUSTIC WOUND | "Grinding Mechanism Of Torment"

Profound Lore Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Caustic Wound have returned with their second album, Grinding Mechanism of Torment, a pulverizing and apocalyptic record that hits with relentless carnage. Arguably the finest grindcore influenced death metal band still spewing out records, their latest feels something like being trampled by a stampede for the rest of eternity. The songs are short and... well, caustic, imploding with diabolical riffs over rhythms that both incinerate and groove, played at blinding speeds. The avalanche of spiraling riffs cut like battery acid through the ungodly jackhammering of the drums, and sure enough, Caustic Wound have created a reckless masterpiece of grinding terror.

DEERHOOF | "Noble and Godlike in Ruin"

Joyful Noise Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

It would be fair that at some point in the process of releasing twenty albums that the magic might falter, but that ain't Deerhoof. Noble and Godlike in Ruin is a visionary escape, a semblance of spiritual rejuvenation as the world and society continues crumbling in non-stop tragedy. Deerhoof can't be shaken though, the band instead pull out all the stops of endless innovation, squirming between nuanced noise pop, knotted touches of free jazz, and a cataclysmic approach to rhythmic expanse that has yet to tire. Twenty records in and Deerhoof remain a gift to the forward-thinking world.

FATBOI SHARIF & DRIVEBY | "Let Me Out"

Deathbomb Arc
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Fatboi Sharif operates on a different wave length. The New Jersey based MC prefers to warp expectations, reshaping rap's boundaries in a way that feels alien but he's a hip-hop head at heart. Let Me Out, produced in full by Driveby, is imbued with creative bars and disorienting beats, but as weird as it may get, Fatboi Sharif's lyrics command your attention. Rooted in galactic horror and demonic surrealism, the record is equal parts visionary and well… relatively accessible. There's a lot to unpack but it's a pleasure to do so.

FIB | "Heavy Lifting"

Julia’s War Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

It might not be summer just yet, but listen to Fib's new album Heavy Lifting, and you'd never know. The Philadelphia based art rock band's second album feels like the sun shining, long nights, and melting ice cream. Blending together shoegaze with a post-punk immediacy and sprightly (dare we say mathy) structures that bounce in unexpected directions, their new record feels refreshing, picking and pulling from familiar sounds to create something that feels delightfully askew. The songs on Heavy Lifting are tightly composed but willing to let themselves combust and unravel.

FLY ANAKIN | "(The) Forever Dream"

Lex Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Coloring outside the lines on (The) Forever Dream, Richmond's Fly Anakin is ascending. While he's always been a nimble MC, his latest proves that his smoked out raps are able to shift time and space. Executive produced by Quelle Chris, it would seem the two share a kindred spirit as unique lyricists with a penchant for albums both thematic and adventurous. Over soulful production from The Alchemist, Chris Keys, and Child Actor among others, Fly Anakin spits bars that leap between animated precision and hazy abstraction on a record built with vivid attention to detail.

HOLY WAVE | "Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides"

Suicide Squeeze Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Holy Wave's musical trajectory has been marvelous to hear unfold as they've dipped deeper into the soft psychedelic drift with each successive release. Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides, a new archival release, connects the dots between 2020's Interloper and 2023's Five of Cups, collecting an impromptu recording session and the band's stand-alone singles as they shook off pandemic malaise with a bout of unbridled creativity. Equal parts serene and surrealist, the record is a beautiful addition to their magnificently disorienting psych pop splendor.

KALEIDOSCOPE | "Cities of Fear"

La Vida Es Un Mus Discos
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Hot damn, we're thrilled that Kaleidoscope are back. Five years since the Decolonization EP, they've returned (following stints in Straw Man Army and Tower 7) more blistering and corrosive than ever on Cities of Fear. Channeling psychedelic touches into hissing hardcore and anarcho-punk, the band play with unglued structures that understand nuance. Shifting from one section to the next, the record leaves a wake of genuine political disdain for a system that’d be happy to see us all burn.

MORBIFIC | "Bloom of the Abnormal Flesh"

Me Saco Un Ojo
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Finland's Morbific play old school death metal in its purest form. Their sound is putrid and oozing, gory and grimy, from filth it came and in filth it stays. Their third album, Bloom of the Abnormal Flesh, picks back up on the promise of the band's debut, opting for rotting brutality over perfectly manicured production (though the sound is a major step up from their last album). The record is raw and festering and while it might not recreate the wheel, there's a sense of vulgar reverence creeping throughout.

SUMAC & MOOR MOTHER | "The Film"

Thrill Jockey Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Neither SUMAC or Moor Mother are strangers to collaboration, as each artist has seemingly used the opportunities to explore the outside reaches of their own music. Coming together for The Film, SUMAC and Moor Mother prove that what’s an unlikely pairing on paper is captivating in reality. With slow quaking atmospheric dread and wrought tension that drifts like an ominous cloud, the songs are heavy and sprawling but poetically and politically focused. Like a transmission from an alien land, the result in keen to both melt and reshape our brains.

VIAGRA BOYS | "Viagr Aboys"

Shrimptech Enterprises
Spotify | Apple

Even among the world of cocaine fueled punk rock, Viagra Boys always felt like a long shot for mainstream popularity and yet they are inching ever closer, with arena level touring an ever increasing possibility, and we're all for it. A great band with a heaping dose of hilarious personality, their fourth album, viagr aboys, continues to expand their tongue in cheek post-punk nihilism in new directions. Locking into absurdist dance punk and dub-influenced art rock, Viagra Boys load up on sleaze and excess with a raw sense of style.

WRETCHED BLESSING | "Psychic Barriers to Entry"

Two Mongrels Recordings
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Wretched Blessing, the experimental metal duo of Kayhan Vaziri (Yautja) and Rae Amitay (Immortal Bird) return with Psychic Barrier To Entry, their second EP in as many years, a ruthless fusion of shapeshifting technicality and monstrous brutality. Their creative partnership is blooming with an eruption of grinding filth and impenetrable density. A winding beast of metal’s extremes that rarely stays in place, the duo dig through sludge and primal death metal touchstones to create something unique and inherently unholy.

Further Listening:

Adrianne Lenker - Live at Revolution Hall
Big|Brave - OST
Care Home - For Nothing
Chris Brokaw - Ghost Ship
Elvis 2 - Thank You Very Much
Iron Shiek - Circle of Iron
Tàrrega 91 - Ckaos Total
This Is Lorelei - Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Deluxe)
Wishy - Planet Popstar

Further Listening:

by: dan goldin