Flush It Friday: Bandcamp Friday Edition
It’s back! I’m back!
A buddy and I were texting the other day about Supertouch, as we are wont to do, and it got me thinkin’ about this excellent split released back in March from New York’s Square One and London’s Turn of Phrase. Square One has been studying The Earth is Flat, and they’ve aced the exam with both “The Cycle” and “What’s Real.” Not to be outdone, Turn of Phrase is gruff, prickly, soft-at-heart, and driven. That other side of melodic hardcore, with maybe a sprinkle of Fiddlehead on “Still a Sin” to spice up the Lifetime influence on “Drivy.” A favourite.
Working-class punk rock with a heart of gold. That’s my pitch for Adult Magic’s Are You Even Happy Now?, the kind of sing-along-with-teary-eyes-and-open-arms album you need for times good and bad. Life is hard (“Evergreen”), and we empathize when things go wrong (“Burned Out”), but we gotta find something like happiness (“Seneca Mantra”). We want more than just scraping by (“Sick Sad World”), and sometimes we get it when we do it together (“A Little Light”), so we can sit back and reflect on all we had and still have (“Roll Along”). For fans of Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, Samiam.
From the dark and noisy opener “FYJJ” through the anti-ICE anthem “MELT” to the plaintively beautiful “Amor Moribundo” and caustic closer “Switchback,” Atlanta’s MUELAS’s debut EP Bellow is unlike anything I’ve heard this year. MUELAS’s sound is rooted in hardcore and bolstered by the talents of vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Susan Irais Reyes. As fierce and justified as a raging conflagration, as tender and delicate as we all are, this is the sound of revolution. “Where is the empathy? Where is your empathy?” We keep asking such questions, mostly knowing the answers but always hoping for something different. Chinga la migra. Fuck ICE.
AND SO WE FLUSH.
Stick‘s got TMP. Spear‘s got WWW.
Brock Ssssssssamssssson has a track premiere from Cartilage.
Spear‘s got a premiere, too! New stuff from site-faves Ninth Realm.
Toilet Radio 637 features Joe ‘n Jordan doin’ what they do.
Aaron with an excellent retrospective on an album Cryptopsy would prefer we’d simply forget about.
Meadow Wyand has 4 flaming toilets for the new Dry Wedding. Great review!
Brock‘s back with the second Scene Steelers, featuring Phoenix’s prog-hoggers Tapestrees.
Sean Ghoulson with some nifty words on Obsession, one of my three favourite films of 2026.
Bear In The Mirror: An Analysis of Obsession and Various Responses
That’s the week in the Bowl! Lots of goodies. Drop your GBUs and your BCF hauls in the comments.
