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.

BEAK> | “Life Goes On“

I wasted a decade of my life not listening to Beak> and while you may question my opinions and “cred” as a result, I’m here now and I am listening intently to everything Geoff Barrow and company have done… and while late to the party, it’s utterly amazing. Mixing together krautrock, psych, post-rock, drone, and everything forward thinking, the band create something that sounds electronic but feels organic. Set to release a new EP this summer, the record’s first single is the ominous motorik “Life Goes On,” a song that sounds like Can shot into space some thousand years in the future. The rhythms are complex with auxiliary percussion and syncopated beats, and the warm hum of the guitars and analog synths provide the perfect aura for the warbling vocals.

BIG|BRAVE | “Holding Pattern”

Another entry, another band I should have been listening to for years. I first heard Montreal’s BIG|BRAVE at about 3am on Friday night and I have listened to just about nothing else since. Set to release their latest album, A Gaze Among Them, this week (5/10) via Southern Lord, the band’s music is a special kind of indescribable, the heavy kind that sounds like pieces of all your favorite bands, but reconfigured in a way you’ve never heard before. “Holding Pattern,” their new single, has elements of post-metal, doom, and eerie drone, but their sound is far prettier than it is heavy (at least in the traditional sense of the word). It’s heavy as slow pouring concrete, but more in the emotional heft, than any pummeling. BIG|BRAVE do it with atmosphere and extended structures but the key to the minimalist menace is the gorgeous vocals of Robin Wattie, her voice carrying through the dust and desolation as the band rip and contort through serene landscapes and tension filled dirges (think Scout Niblett meets Aaron Turner… yep, that good). I’ve never heard anything quite like it and I’m now officially obsessed.

CATE LE BON “The Light”

The legendary Cate Le Bon hardly needs our help spreading the word about her upcoming record, Reward, due out later this month via Mexican Summer, but we love her music and can’t sit by any longer. Taking a notedly different direction than 2016’s Crab Day and 2017’s Rock Pool (as well as her collaborations with Tim Presley as DRINKS), the songs we’ve heard from Reward peel back some of the “strange” from those records and while we love it weird, Le Bon’s songwriting still shines in every way, opting for something less abrasive but equally free and imaginative. “The Light” is the third single to be released and finds Le Bon in a wandering mood, drifting around an almost jazzy structure that slinks with damped grooves and a beautiful piano backdrop, completing her Welsh accent that is, as always, the highlight of any Cate Le Bon composition.

DELILUH | “Rabbit“

Toronto’s Deliluh might just be Canada’s best-kept-secret, but the time for that to change has arrived with Oath of Intent, the band’s new album out now on Telephone Explosion and Tin Angel Records. Recalling bands like Ought and Mauno, Deliluh’s artistic take on post-punk is slightly more aggressive but all the more disorienting. “Rabbit,” the second single from the record is dark and twisting, careening minimalist drifts of noise -informed punk with sparse rhythmic detachment, pushing and pulling away from safety to conjure forces that are beyond structural sound, instead wandering into the dark and spinning until they find new ground.

DUMB | “Beef Hits”

I had the pleasure of catching Vancouver’s Dumb at SXSW for my first time and I couldn’t help but notice that some of the newer material they were playing reminded me of Uranium Club, and I was real okay with that. Dumb, a great weirdo post-punk in their own right, released the awesome Seeing Green just last year but the band are back with Club Nites, another full length due out on Mint Records in June. “Beef Hits” is the record’s second single, a swirling sarcastic post-punk song that is skronky one moment and highly jagged the next but always tight and laser focused. The song addresses opportunistic leech types, those that come slithering from the dark whenever good fortune arrives.

FUMING MOUTH | “Fatalism“

“Fatalism,” the first single from Massachusetts metal band Fuming Mouth’s upcoming full length debut, The Grand Descent, is real fucking heavy. The colossal terror of the band’s attack comes with no warning, no calm before the storm (unless you count the time before you hit play) and it’s that immediacy that plays a big part in their sound. Mixing together elements of grindcore, sludge, and hardcore, the band are at times reminiscent of gone-but-not-forgotten Trap Them, as they decimate with a pummeling three chord groove and freaked out rhythms. The lyrics, “flames eat at your flesh, smoke strangles your neck, ceilings collapse into your body” aren’t exactly the feel good anthem of the Summer, but this song sure does rip and we can’t wait to hear more.

HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE | “Poison”

We’ve waited patiently and at last, Boston’s Horse Jumper Of Love, are set to release their sophomore album, So Divine, in June. One of our favorite bands making music these days, there’s something special about returning to the world of HJOL (following a great Community College album), a slow dripped territory that feels majestic and surreal, where nothing is quite as it seems, but everything tends to amaze. Lead single “Poison” is one that has been a staple of their live set for several years now but the recording is stunning all the same, little nuances and textures that radiate from the crawling tempo, every tonal shift accented in small bursts that are brilliant as they paint the larger picture at hand. I don’t always know what Dimitri Giannopoulos’ lyrics mean, but that doesn’t make them any less spectacular as he offers glimpses into distant dreams of fatherhood, “watching you throw rocks at seagulls, you little brat” and “we got dizzy watching Jeopardy with the hair dryer on.”

MANNEQUIN PUSSY | “Drunk II”

Ever since the early duo days of Mannequin Pussy, the band have always been pushing their sound into the next logical place, always moving forward and never looking back at what they’ve done. Its the band’s forward thinking that keeps them dynamic and their ability to shift from garage punk, to hardcore, to shoegaze, and into sticky bubblegum pop realms that keep them interesting. “Drunk II” falls pretty firmly in on the pop-wave length but there’s an awesome shredding guitar solo and the songwriting is strong and memorable. It’s a solid introduction to the record, one that shows the band venturing further into the accessible power-pop touches of Romantic’s thickest earworms, and the balance for the upcoming onslaught that is “Drunk I”.

PILE | “Green and Gray” LP

What can I really say about Green and Gray that hasn’t already been said? It’s a masterpiece, plain and simple, a meticulously constructed vision of commitment and perseverance that finds Pile at their best. From the impeccable “Firewood,” a song that feels instantly classic, and the brash unpredictability of “On a Bigger Screen,” to the mountainous shifts of “Lord of Calendars” (courtesy of Kris Kuss’ uniquely melodic rhythms), and the poignant bare bones of “No Hands,” everything is executed to perfection. Whether jarring or personal (or a mix of the two), Rick Maguire’s lyrics have opened up and the self reflection hits hard when faced inward and furious when pointed outward at the world we endure. It’s a wild ride that shimmers with insight and convulses with an incredible fury, and it proves why Pile are considered one of the best band’s of our generation. I could go on and on forever, but I’ve also been yelling this to anyone who will listen for the past eight years at EIS.

PROTOMARTYR | “Whatever Happened to the Saturn Boys?”

While I continue to love everything that is Protomartyr and their poetic, artistic, brand of post-punk, their full length debut, No Passion All Technique, will forever be the “classic” for me. Its where I feel in love with the band and it’s a high mark of gnarled and repetitive punk, sputtering and raw, abrasive and tightly coiled. The band recently reissued the Urinal Cake Records release with their recent home at Domino Records and together with the album comes the Dreads 84 85 EP and a never before released track called “Whatever Happened to the Saturn Boys?” that captures a glimpse at the band in their earliest era that could actually show hints of where they’d head, one of the more melodic, if still kinda raw and mangled, selections from their introductory years. Joe Casey’s vocals take a softer approach, but their remain slurred and deadpan, howling as the intensity builds and the guitars swirl into the dust.

Further Listening:

APRIL 22 - APRIL 28:

APRIL 29 - MAY 05:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (April 22nd - May 5th)