The Fresh Five: Greta Ruth, Anita Velveeta, Another Heaven, Trash Catties, and Gladden/Sweetblood

For the Fresh Five we pick out five great new(ish) jams that we’re currently obsessing over.

We posted about single “Cuseo hands” back when it originally came out last July. Greta Ruth will be releasing the album on which it appears, Holy Omen, this coming Saturday at the Hamline United Methodist Church in Saint Paul (event details). It should be an incredible venue for an incredible night of music. 

Anita Velveeta is a local DIY artist with an extensive catalogue of recorded music. Velveeta’s music is eclectic to the extreme – ranging from fairly straightforward alt rock to hyperpop, hardcore, and even country. The above single just came out and it’s pretty much a big “fuck you” to the non-allies out there, set to the tune of screamed vocals, bass, drums, guitar, saxaphone as well as contributions from the The Twin Cities Transgender Satanism Choir. They will be releasing their latest in a double release show with The Briefly Gorgeous (whom we covered a little while back) Pilllar Forum on Sept. 29 

Another Heaven are a long-running local post punk/sludgecore band led by Ali Jaafar. They will be releasing a full length album later this month (on local label MPLS LTD) and recently put out single “Arab Stardust” from it. The 90’s vibes are strong with this one. Keep and eye out here for updates on the new record. 

Local duo Trash Catties recently visited Death Valley during a record heat wave to record the video for their latest single “Low  Point.” It’s hard to pay attention to the music with such white-knuckle supersoaker action on the screen, but from what I gathered the new single is anchored by a combination of a strong bassline, electric violin, drums, and Manny Catties’ vocals. 

While Sweetblood (Wade Underwood) is sporadic in terms of output, we can always rely on him for quality. Sadly we can no longer consider him local but before he moved away he did collaborate on this single with Duluth’s Gladden. According to Underwood, “Off The Top” was recorded in an effort to “channel the goofball pop of Alex Cameron.” I think they largely succeed but without quite as much overt sleaze.