After releasing their sun-kissed, soulful debut “Evil Joy” in 2021, Fust – now a seven-piece featuring songwriter Aaron Dowdy, drummer Avery Sullivan, pianist Frank Meadows, guitarist John Wallace, multi-instrumentalist Justin Morris, fiddlist Libby Rodenbough, and bassist Oliver Child-Lanning – decamped to Drop of Sun to record “Genevieve” with producer Alex Farrar, with whom they reunited for their astounding new album, “Big Ugly”. Named after an unincorporated area in southern West Virginia, around which Dowdy’s family has deep roots, the record is conflicted yet aspirational: homey while grappling with the mystery of home, hopeful when hope rests between the promise of a new life and relenting in old, slow, ragged ways. As the title may suggest, it wrings beauty out of the most unexpected places, honing in the band’s knack for making small feelings appear monumental – that is, closer to their true experience.
“The enormous, long river of storytelling, fed by ancient headwaters, shoring up time, bounded by landscape and people and witness to the beauty and anguish of each. Deconstructed ballads and reveries of drunk ghosts, obtuse and palatable superimposed. The relatable not just accompanied but defined by the very weird. Kitchen-table images from a spotty memory, beater cars mystically lifted, characters coming and going, old friends on the porch. In this town everyone knows each other, knows each others’ business, and everyone’s got strange trouble. Big Ugly is beer-fisted radio country from a post-verbal hermit; “Oh what country, friends, is this,” a line from “Twelfth Night,” uttered by Viola after being shipwrecked on an unfamiliar shore, one that might hold new life or prove to be another disappointment. Nobody moves.
The voice is home, but home is a mystery. We get older and learn nothing, our world barely recognizable. We help each other out. We stay in a place that is losing its future, whether out of commitment or despondency. Big Ugly is Southern mountain rock, Southern lit, made and dedicated to the inextricable entity of land and people, to visions of community and utopia and testament to erosion. The country is a steady drum beat and fried guitar. The language is a dream.”
Performed by
Aaron Dowdy: guitar, vocals, and synth
Avery Sullivan: drums and percussion
Frank Meadows: piano and percussion
John Wallace: guitar and vocals
Justin Morris: guitar, pedal steel, vocals
Libby Rodenbough: fiddle and vocals
Oliver Child-Lanning: bass, vocals, dulcimer, and synth
With help from
Alex Farrar: guitar and lap steel (4)
Dave Hartley: synths (5, 6)
Jacob Bruner: horns (3, 11)
John James Tourville: pedal steel (1, 3, 5, 8, 11)
Merce Lemon: vocals (8)
released March 7th, 2025
The Fat Angel Sings 