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

AAA GRIPPER | "We Invented Work For The Common Good"

Wrong Speed Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

AAA Gripper - a great new band featuring members of Sweet Williams, Hey Colossus, and Joeyfat - release their debut album, We Invented Work For The Common Good, a tightly knotted record rooted in the band's rhythmic density. The quartet play hypnotic post-hardcore with krautrock inclinations in a way that feels fresh, vibrant, and entirely unhinged. The grooves are mangled more often than not and the band take every opportunity to devolve into brilliant chaos.

ARTIFICIAL GO | "Musical Chairs"

Feel It Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Less than a year after their debut album (a favorite of 2024), Cincinnati’s Artificial Go are back, and their sound has evolved. While Hopscotch Fever was primarily rooted in bouncy post-punk and minimalist no wave indebted pop, the band’s second album, Musical Chairs, continues to expand their vision, keeping the tightly coiled charm of their debut, but opting for something much brighter. The band weaves charismatic art punk appeal with a perfectly resonant dream-pop core. With a blissful nature and massive hooks, Artificial Go sound utterly phenomenal as they blur genre lines with energetic joy.

BLOOD MONOLITH | "The Calling of Fire"

Profound Lore Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Blood Monolith's debut album sounds like the aural equivalent of getting your head ripped clean off. The DC based band (featuring mems of Ulthar, Undeath, Genocide Pact, Nails, etc) come out bludgeoning with beastly death metal as brutal and claustrophobic as it gets. The opening of "Trepanation Worm" is possibly the least subtle introduction that's ever existed, an annhilation of dexterous rhythms and dizzying riffs played at the utmost extreme. "This can't possibly get more brutal," you say, and yet...

THE GOTOBEDS | "Masterclass"

12XU
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

After a six year absence, Pittsburgh's working class punk heroes The Gotobeds are back with Masterclass, the band’s return to 12XU after a pair of albums for Sub Pop. The quartet maintain their knack for ear-splitting distortion, catchy shout along lyrics, and a style that's both loose yet dense, playing basement punk rippers with an eruption of big swaggering stadium sized hooks.

GRACE ROGERS | "Mad Dogs"

Sophomore Lounge
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Mad Dogs is the stunning debut from Kentucky based singer/songwriter Grace Rogers, an album of wistful country and Americana, honoring the genre's traditional roots while expanding upon them with an electric radiance. Dynamic and heartfelt, the songs are living and breathing glimpses into a variety of characters, each flush with their own unique color. From the elongated grooves of "Downstream" to gentle intimacy of "Peachie," Rogers has crafted a gorgeous debut that deserves all the attention.

GRAILS | "Miracle Music"

Temporary Residence Ltd.
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Grails aren't wasting any time. Following a six year wait between Chalice Hymnal and Anches En Maat, the band are back at it again with Miracle Music, an amorphous album that feels every bit like an intricate collage. Layers are manipulated and glued back together to create something alien and otherworldly. An eerie calm is met with high tension to create an experimental landscape of surrealist intent.

LOW HEALER | "Hold Music"

Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Following a string of great singles, Low Healer release their debut EP, Hold Music, an exceptional collection of swarming indie rock tunes. Nicola Leel (Customer, Doe) has channeled the FM gold of the alternative rock glory days into six confident tracks that place equal emphasis on power pop charm as they do amp rattling riffs and nuanced vocals. There are hooks for days.

M(H)AOL | "Something Soft"

Merge Records
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Dublin's M(h)aol return with their second album, Something Soft, a great blend of post-punk, art pop, and thick blankets of fuzz. The trio lean harder into their rhythmic pulse, pounding with motorik tendencies that set the structural framework for their blistering hooks and abrasive tonality. With pointed lyrics about misogyny, that state of world, and corporate greed, M(h)aol are absolutely buzzing throughout.

STRESS POSITIONS | "Human Zoo"

Three One G
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

Chicago’s Stress Positions return with Human Zoo and their corrosive brand of hardcore is as combustible as ever, erupting with seismic force and never slowing to watch the decimation as it unfolds. Their onslaught it brutally direct, built on stampeding drums and paint peeling guitars. Then there's Stephanie Brooks’ vocals, howling at breakneck speeds, shouting against injustice with righteous fury.

THA GOD FAHIM & NICHOLAS CRAVEN | "Ultimate Dump Gawd"

Self Released
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple

The past six months has seen Tha God Fahim and producer Nicholas Craven release no less than eleven volumes of their Dump Gawd: Hyperbolic Time Chamber Rap series. For those overwhelmed by the speed of their output, enter Ultimate Dump Gawd, a compilation of highlights from the first four records. Tha God Fahim continues to shine with his stream-of-conscious lyrical approach, spitting bars that swerve between soulful reflection, guns out rap menace, and plenty of bars regarding the art of hip-hop.

Further Listening:

Full of Hell - Broken Sword, Rotten Shield
Gold Dust - In the Shade of the Living Light
The High Water Marks - Consult the Oracle
Kilynn Lunsford - Promiscuous Genes
Mazozma - Bathing In The Stone
Paper Castles - I'm Sad as Hell and I'm Not Going to Fake It Anymore
Snooper - Unknown Caller EP
Thanks For Coming - The IRS No Longer Has My Address, And Neither Do I
Water Damage - Instruments

Further Listening:

by: dan goldin