by Dan Goldin
Welcome to “Essentials,” a column for new music recommendations from one lifelong chucklehead with questionable taste. It’s similar to “Fuzzy Meadows” except the title makes more sense and we’ve removed the words “best” and “weekly”. This column will be sporadic, but hopefully worth the wait. Presented as always in glorious alphabetical order.
Author’s Note: After a decade as the founder and editor of Post-Trash, I’ve been attempting to take a step back from the site, but have so far found myself constantly drawn back in. The compulsion to write about new music (with a primitive vocabulary and an utter lack of literary refinement) is deeply embedded in my ever aging soul. There’s an elegant saying “opinions are like assholes… everyone has one” and it rings true to this column. “Essentials” is but one person’s personal opinion. You might agree, you might not, and well, that’s the internet for you, but I sincerely hope you might find some new music you connect with. Support the bands you love. Spread the word and buy some new music when you can.
This edition of “Essentials” includes art punk from Nightshift, art folk from Naima Bock, art pop from Automatic, psychedelic pop from Guerilla Toss, experimental pop from Titanic, power-pop (maybe, just go with it) from Jobber, and just a general examination of what the idea of “pop music” could be in a forward thinking world (ie, a different world than this). Either that or it’s just a bunch of great songs… however you prefer to look at it. There’s also a new single from Clipse, so dig in.
AUTOMATIC
“Is It Now?”
Los Angeles’ Automatic are bouncing around in our ears once again with new single “Is It Now?,” their first new music since 2022’s great Excess LP. The trio sound as vibrant as ever, their brand of snapped into place post-punk and synth pop colliding with a frantic energy and leaping hooks. With hard grooving bass, cinematic synths, and a propulsive drum beat, the trio jitter through a charming mirage of psychedelic pop and dreamy punk, their vocal melodies sticking like glue as distortion bleeds in, motorik claps accent the beat, and everything finds its own perfect place in their well crafted swarm. Deviant pop at full glow. We can’t wait for the band’s third album, due out later this year.
CLIPSE
“So Be It”
We already mentioned that Clipse are set to return next month with their first new album in sixteen years and we can hardly stand the anticipation. As verses and clips leak at random, we’re keeping a patient ear for official glimpses into the record, the latest being Let God Sort Em Out’s second single, “So Be It”. With an Eastern inspired beat from Pharrell Williams that includes back-masked drums and bass to rattle the speakers, Pusha T and Malice go in and dissect the competition, sounding at home as they spit subliminal threats, refine stunting, and talk their shit (“fuck around and get your body traced trying to test me, cuz n***s I’m with like to draw when it’s sketchy”).
GUERILLA TOSS
“Red Flag To Angry Bull”
The constant evolution of Guerilla Toss is a thing of pure beauty, a band that has progressed in ways and shapes that most artists can hardly conceive. Light years away from the harsh and chaotic noise punk of their beginnings, the band has spent the past decade and a half exploring their musical inclinations without feat, following their intuition like an acidic north star. You’re Weird Now, the band’s latest album, is another definitive statement in their catalog, an unabashed freak pop record, that’s outwardly exuberant at all costs… and the results are nothing short of amazing. “Red Flag To Angry Bull” is the perfect introduction, a pressure cooker explosion of kaleidoscopic sunshine pop, an undercurrent of disorienting prog, and guest features from none other than Stephen Malkmus and a ripping guitar solo from Trey Anastasio (Oysterhead forever). Kassie Carlson’s vocals sound fantastic, upfront and surging with melodic resonance, it’s sunshine distilled.
JOBBER
“Nightmare”
The mighty Jobber have returned to “the squared circle” to lay the smack down. Three years after the band introduced themselves via Hell In A Cell, the Brooklyn based quartet are back with Jobber To The Stars, their first full length album. Recorded with Justin Pizzoferrato and mastered by Howie Weinberg (the mastering engineer behind chestnuts like Nirvana’s Nevermind and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger), the record is layered with blistering guitars, futuristic keys, and intricate rhythms, a dirge of firecracker tonality with Kate Meizner’s dynamic lyrics and sharp vocal melodies that radiant juxtaposition. The winding bubblegum menace of “Nightmare” takes on greedy CEOs who treat their employees as expendables, a cautionary tale for how not to live. Drawing influence from The Rentals, the muscular pop song burns with melodic destruction and stadium sized hooks.
NAIMA BOCK
“Rolling”
If there’s a voice more comforting that Naima Bock’s, I’ve yet to hear it. The UK based songwriter extraordinaire returned this week with “Rolling,” a b-side from last year’s magnificent album, Below A Massive Dark Land (my personal favorite record of 2024 that I had no involvement with). As fitting a title as there ever was, “Rolling” finds Bock in narrative movement, recognizing the futility in trying to love someone who’d rather remain damaged. The song rolls along free from the torment, focused on a landscape in constant motion, a calling toward a proverbial home, a search for a place of healing. With a gentle acoustic guitar accompaniment, Naima Bock’s vocals do most of the heavy lifting, her lilt rising and sinking as she delivers pointed lyrics and best wishes (“still I pray for peace and you to find your footing, I hope that underneath there’s surely something loving”).
NIGHTSHIFT
“Dice / Firefly”
Nightshift, everyone’s favorite Glaswegian art-pop sextet, follow up last year’s Homosapien, with “Dice / Firefly,” a great new digital single released in support of Children Not Numbers, an organization providing immediate aid and working towards sustainable solutions for the children of Gaza. The pair of songs take the band in opposing directions as “Dice” is coiled in post-disco noise pop abandon and hypnotic kraut-pop bliss while “Firefly” opts for a silky resolve, the dreamy nature of the song built on gorgeous harmonies and a twitchy propulsion. With shades of Electrelane in their DNA, Nightshift continue to expand and color outside the lines of their amorphous sound, reshaping indie rock with a majestic freedom, contorted grooves and all.
TITANIC
“Gotera”
“Gotera,” the first single from Titanic’s second album, HAGEN, is a full on auditory spectacle. The electronic carnage of the rhythm will have you wondering if your speakers are in fact decomposing in rapid time, but with that clanging destruction comes startling beauty. The Mexico City based duo, comprised of experimental composers Mabe Fratti and I. la Católica, find a sense of unity between Fratti’s unshakably gorgeous vocals and the industrial sprawl that sounds something like a typewriter and gunfire coming to haunt your worst nightmares. It’s a song that matches conceptual abrasion with warmth and a poetic beauty, “the leak” (aka “Gotera”) seemingly representing an impossible divide that’s consuming our world.
Sometimes you’re late to the party. There’s no shame in it. Better to arrive late than never. I’ve only just started listening to Billie Marten, who just released the fifth single from her upcoming fifth album, Dog Eared. The UK based singer/songwriter’s music is full of texture, the songs shifting and adapting as her emotions dictate: boisterous one moment and somber the next, but always well earned. Check out the psychedelic slink at the heart of “Clover” and the triumphant twang of “Swing,” there’s a lot to enjoy here.
Six months after the release of their self-titled debut EP, Bursting are set to release their self-titled debut LP, an expansion of the EP with an additional three songs and a newly configured track listing. “Fake Out Luxury” is the lead single from the new additions, and it finds the Chicago based post-hardcore quartet tangling themselves further into both hypnotic nuance and unglued seismic upheaval. With members of Yautja and Stress Positions in their ranks, Bursting are veterans of ballistic dexterity, and they continue to refine their approach with Bursting’s sense of patience and expiatory nature.
It’s 2025 and there is absolutely no reason to “gender” bands but in the case of New York’s Castrator, it feels like a victory, the all female death metal band feel like a genuine breath of fresh air, a much needed change of pace. Set to release Coronation of the Grotesque, their second album, next month via Dark Descent, the band have upped the brutality with a grinding sense of terror and riffs that devolve between lumbering and splintered, a contusion of melodic chaos and putrid sludge. You know… the good stuff.
Way back in the optimistic days of April (just kidding… different month, same year), Clifford announced the upcoming release of their second album, Golden Caravan. Due out next month via Sipsman, the album is a juggernaut of an indie rock album that intersects the finer touches of fuzzy slacker pop, molasses dripped slowcore, and mountainous post-hardcore. “C Song,” the record’s third single highlights the later aspect of their sound, soaring yet gnarled, intricate yet primal, it’s indie rock with badass heft. Heart and muscle, brain and brawn.
The enigmatic and supremely talented Mal Devisa is getting ready to release Palimpsesa, a new retrospective collection of her catalog to date, a treasure trove of music released in fits and starts over the years. Reissued by Topshelf Records, the twenty nine track set captures the dynamic nature of Deja Carr’s music, moving between booming hip-hop, soulful jazz, homespun R&B, and sparse folk with a dazzling grace. It all comes naturally in the Mal Devisa catalog, the heart at the core of the sounds the common thread holding it all together.
What if as an experiment we all decided to go to our favorite record label’s Bandcamp page (or website), whatever label that may be, and find the record we know the absolute least about and ordered it. Could be fun.