Every Friday, a staff member at the ugly hug curates a list of their five favorite new(ish) releases to share with us all. This week, our writer, poet and member of newly formed punk group Big Garden, Autumn, shares with us “five Hot Hot Steamin’ Blazin’ Brand-Spankin-New Tracks to Sizzle onto your table and into your heart (or liver)”

“Rock & Roller Girl” by Liquid Images

Liquid Images is the tour de force of Cleveland rock n roll veterans Marty Brass (Ma Holos, Red Devil Ryders, Marty Brass & the Lavender Jets) and Richard Hamilton (musician, author, founder of Quality Time Records in 2014). “Rock & Roller Girl” comes from the duo’s debut album – which, in true punk style, packs seven songs into less than 18 minutes. This snack-sized smorgasbord was recorded in Downey, California over the course of 2021 to 2023, finally unleashed unto the eager masses earlier this year in January. It sounds like a record leisurely recorded by two friends who know what they’re doing, and it rocks.

Liquid Images’ self-titled album is a jammy, groovy departure from Brass and
Hamilton’s earlier, (mostly) retired project, Pig Flayer (which is heavy and nasty and absolutely rules, if you can get your hands on one of the few remaining ‘45s). All seven tracks are jammy revelations you can sink your teeth into and shake your ass to, both, but “Rock & Roller Girl” stands out as the representative track of the whole lot, energetically.

Hamilton’s dreamy yet heavy-hitting vocal style oozes with honed punk power that’s been marble-chiseled by time and experience into a pied piper rally cry that’ll make a believer outta you yet, you silly stuck-in-your-ways sensible shoegaze softies. Get freaky and give this one a spin (and thank me later).

“Spend It All” by The Oystermen

Don’t let the whole alternative-teen-groupie-Thorazine-lapsang-souchong look fool you. This writer gets down to a good ole stompin’ bluegrass hootenenay hit from time to time – but it has to be pretty damn good to pull me away from my regularly scheduled brooding cuppa the aforementioned lapsang souchong (I know who I am). “Spend It All” by Brooklyn’s newest bluegrass super-force is that good.

This red-hot track just dropped a few weeks ago, and lyrically, it’s a masterpiece. Frontman Stanley holds it down and pushes it up with jaunty harmonica and driving acoustic guitar, but more than his lively, boot-stompin’ delivery, it’s his words that walk home with you after the show’s over. The chorus rips in with the proverb, “Get a whole lotta money, spend it all havin’ a good time.” This is the new national anthem, or at least the song of the summer. “Stay out all night listenin’ to the rest of the album, it’s
gonna be a blast. Go back home tomorrow mornin’, and then you can crash. Doctor said I should count some sheep, I said ‘Whaddo I look like, Little Bo Peep?’ C’mon listen to the rest of the album.” *harmonica solo* Finally, a track you and your dad’s friends can all get down to.

…and The Oystermen’s trumpet player deserves his own write-up. Every band in New York that’s been looking for a trumpeter is going to writhe and lament when they hear this one.

“MASS APPEAL” by Nat Cherry and Braxtino

This dark, toothy groove dropped just two weeks ago, and I’ve already spun it at least 50 times. Longtime punk rocker Nat Cherry and soulful guitar god Braxton (Smith Taylor, Black Lazarus) joined forces for a soon-to-be cult classic track that, frankly, doesn’t look like any of the tunes either of them have put out before now.

“MASS APPEAL” is for folks who discovered Nico’s “Chelsea Girls” in their teens, graduated to the realm of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Nina Hagen in their twenties, and are now looking for what’s next. Your search is over, lovers. Nat Cherry’s deep, round, lilting drone pulls the trip forward through heavy synth and a brick-laying drum beat. Braxton brings the smooth polished vocals in just the right places, but those places are few. No one is over-singing or over-performing here, and that’s what makes this track so deliriously cool. It hits because it hits, and no one is doing backflips to
catch your attention. They don’t have to.

Hopefully, “MASS APPEAL” is the scintillating promise of more to come from this Brooklyn-based duo. My loved ones are becoming strangers as the mouth-foaming jones for a full EP ravages my body (please god more).

“G Bus” by Tired Horses

The single, “G Bus,” dropped in 2023, and Tired Horses edged their loyal following of jazz-horny clean cut acid freaks with a live album recorded at Hidden Fortress in Philly. Now, it’s 2024 and we’re ready to climax. Give us the manna from heaven, Steely Dan.

This freewheelin’ psychedelic fantasia of acid jazz is just what the doctor ordered in two ways: It’s the antidote to the singer-songwriter-mania that’s oversaturated the New York music scene since the pandemic, and listening to it will make you live forever. Whether folks know about it or not, Tired Horses is already a supergroup – but ultra-niche-lovin’ music heads (you know who you are) will want to pounce on this one now if they want to say they knew about the horsies before they were big. Savant guitarist Cameron Criss (Ruby, Buga, the Claire Ozmun Band), saxophonist Mike Talento, bassist Alex Tvaroch, Jack Gruber on keys, and Szecso Szendrody on drums
fill a space and keep it filled so effortlessly that you won’t even miss a singer.

Tired Horses did something truly special with “G Bus” by capturing that delicious live sound without it going flat. All those groovy layers are preserved in amber – and for New York groovers who wanna shake some action in-person, the band has a residency at Troost bar in Greenpoint. They play a totally original set on the first Monday of every month and there’s no door fee.

“What Money?” by Crystal Egg

Curtis Godino makes the organ sexy. “Organ” as in the instrument, aka the cooler older sister of the piano. This Nashville band hit the stage for the first time in April 2023, but Crystal Egg is already dripping with style. “What Money?” is the group’s only recorded track on music streaming platforms (and it just dropped in April) but they already landed a spot opening for the Lemon Twigs on their most recent tour a few months ago. Also, the anti-capitalist canticle of “What Money?” effortlessly captures the rage-gut-punch of wanting to be a part of something awesome but getting disenfranchised with a door fee and, gasp, being broke.

Dream-queen Jess McFarland’s avant-garde bohemian vocals melds with futuristic flair from Godino’s one-of-a-kind synth stylings for what can only be described as the intersection of poetry and chaos. There really aren’t any other bands to compare Crystal Egg to, and what a feat. They could quit now and already be a legend. But, the hypersonic life force behind their tunes and off-stage creative tsunami (Godino runs Drippy Eye Projections and a gag toy company called Jester Trading Co., and McFarland is a master seamstress and clothing designer) suggests that there’s much, much more to come from these Nashville newcomers.

Written by Autumn Swiers