Duster - "Together" | Album Review
Together is new slowcore: heavy, gritty, and more nuanced than its modest low-fidelity predecessors. In today’s musical landscape, recordings like those that first established the genre in the 90s are tired appropriation, and the members of Duster are just too busy to put energy to that. Only a pointed update to form is meaningful.
Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (April 18th - April 24th)
Guided By Voices - "Crystal Nuns Cathedral" | Album Review
Their 35th full length record Crystal Nuns Cathedral relies on their modern brand of rock and roll with some added quirks as a nod towards their more experimental history. Much like many of their recent albums, the instrumental quality is clearer and more fleshed out. Pollard’s sugary melodies are the centerpoint of each track.
Mister Goblin - "Bunny" | Album Review
Bunny challenges its listeners to rethink their view of the world. The album touches on how mundane life can be, how sad missing loved ones can be, and how frustrating everything around us can feel. Yet it choses instead to focus on how you can address these feelings as a way of finding hope within them.
mBtheLight - "How To Dress Well In The Dark" | Album Review
Babe Report - "The Future of Teeth" EP | Post-Trash Premiere
Chicago’s Babe Report return with their debut EP, The Future of Teeth, out April 22nd. The band, led by former FCKR JR members Ben Grigg (Geronimo!) and Emily Bernstein, recently expanded their line-up to include Peter Reale (Yeesh) and Mech, building on the thick fuzz and syrupy melodies with burly distortion and pop simplicity.
Screensaver - "Clean Current" Video | Post-Trash Premiere
The accompanying music video follows Krystal Maynard through a bungalow with the band members individually appearing in random locations of the home. The camera glides through the house in a single shot, and as Maynard goes about her daily activities, she sings to the camera with an expressive performance.
Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (April 11th - April 17th)
Spread Joy - "Repetition" | Post-Trash Premiere
The quartet return with their second album, the appropriately titled, II, due out once again via Feel It Records on May 13th. Stretching out with nearly eighteen minutes of music this time around, the band keep the formula the same, but expand with exaggerated immediacy, the occasional harmony, and maybe a bit more force.
Broadcast - "Maida Vale Sessions" | Album Review
Maida Vale Sessions is a collection of four live sets recorded at the Maida Vale studios at BBC, truly capturing the magic that was the Birmingham band. A mesmerizing compilation of live songs for veterans and new fans alike, this live record showcases songs all pre-Tender Buttons, showing their progress as a band between 1996 – 2003.
Battle Ave - "I Saw The Egg" | Album Review
Battle Ave are still the mature band they have always been, still making the soothing yet exciting music they are known for. There’s a lot subtlety, but if you listen closely you’ll be amazed by what can be found on I Saw The Egg. They create a welcoming atmosphere of delicacy with the perfect album to relax, brood, or think introspectively to.
The Weather Station - "How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars" | Album Review
How Is It That I Should Look at The Stars thrives on its construction: played in three days in an uninterrupted jam, it gives back the naturalness of a live show, accompanied by lyrics edited in detail. We are accustomed through contemporary culture to seriality, and The Weather Station succeeds to be a point of coherence of her works.
Naomi Alligator - "Seasick" | Post-Trash Premiere
Naomi Alligator’s gentle folk music is beautifully composed, wrought with feeling but a calming presence. There’s a maturity ingrained in Alligator’s songwriting, even when her sense of humor comes shinning through as playful. It’s in that ability to mix absurdity into her poignant music that separates her from the endless pack of singer/songwriters.
FonFon Ru - "Collapse of the Silver Bridge" LP | Post-Trash Premiere
"I Have to Write Raps": In Conversation with Defcee | Feature Interview
In November of 2021, Defcee released Trapdoor, a collaboration with producer Messiah Musik. Backwoodz Studioz, the current bastion of forward-thinking rap music released the album, giving Defcee’s already-rising profile a considerable shove. Defcee simultaneously writes from insular and elevated perspectives, presenting a harrowing personal narrative that speaks to the grander dystopia in which we’re mired.
Guerilla Toss - "Famously Alive" | Album Review
Though Famously Alive’s first three songs—also its pre-release singles—hint at a straightforward listen that filters the psych elements of previous album Twisted Crystal through a poppier approach, the rest of the album is anything but, revealing a band whose restlessness provokes ceaseless transformation the moment a new opportunity arises.
Crime of Passing - "Ways of Hiding" | Post-Trash Premiere
Crime of Passing, a tight quintet that has been kicking around locally in Cincinnati for the past five years, are set to release their upcoming self-titled full length debut on April 22nd via Feel It Records. The band pull us deep into the murky waters, embracing coldwave and elements of industrial pop into the shadowy post-punk formula.
Springtime - "Night Raver EP" | Album Review
Springtime is considered a supergroup – and rightfully so. Each of these players is a pillar of their craft, a master at their instrument. Their Night Raver EP may only be three songs, but there’s a lot going on: two very disparate longform opuses and one seven-minute improvisation-adjacent rock song.
