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Jan 30, 2025 By Mark Moody Photography by Graham Tolbert

Durham, North Carolina-based Fust (led by singer/songwriter Aaron Dowdy) are releasing their third studio album, Big Ugly, on March 7 via Dear Life. Now they have released the album’s second single, “Bleached,” and an accompanying video.

Big Ugly follows Fust’s last studio release, 2023’s Genevieve. In 2024, Fust released an album of Dowdy’s early self-recorded demos titled Songs of the Rail. The band also previously announced East Coast tour dates, which are available below.

“‘Bleached’ is about being young, feeling like livestock while being driven around,” Dowdy has shared in a press release. “Not thinking, zoning out and feeling drained, disconnected with friends appearing and disappearing. It’s about surviving youth, though not without some costs.”

The song starts as a lilting country-tinged ballad, but blooms to an elevated, yet smudged out, choral bridge towards the end. Fiddle player Libby Roddenbough (Mipso) joins Dowdy in the vocal refrain, while Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs) adds a layer of synths to the proceedings.

The song follows the January release of the album’s first single, “Spangled.” The earlier song’s full bore dynamic provides a taste of the contrasts on offer over the course of the destined breakthrough of Big Ugly. Composed around the very real geography and imagined characters where Dowdy’s grandmother grew up in rural West Virginia, the already released singles evidence a fuller sound than the more contemplative Genevieve.

“I’ve spent countless hours hanging out by fallen gutters out back of rundown houses throughout the South,” Dowdy previously shared of the inspiration for the album. “I never thought to think of them as mountains of the future.” Dowdy’s thoughts are, in part, a reflection of witnessing the discards of ancient civilizations in much more established parts of the world.

Fust Tour Dates:

Mar 28 – Athens, GA @ Flicker Theatre
Mar 29 – Richmond, VA @ The Camel
Apr 01 – Silver Spring, MD @ Quarry House Tavern
Apr 02 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Apr 03 – Medford, MA @ Deep Cuts ^
Apr 04 – Manchester, VT @ Billsville ^
Apr 05 – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
Apr 06 – Hudson, NY @ The Half Moon ^
Apr 08 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Bottlerocket Social Hall
Apr 09 – Chicago, IL @ The Hideout *
Apr 10 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry *
Apr 11 – Northfield, MN @ Carleton College *
Apr 12 – Davenport, IA @ Raccoon Motel *
Apr 13 – Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop *
Apr 15 – St. Louis, MO @ The Sinkhole
Apr 16 – Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar #
Apr 17 – Nashville, TN @ The Blue Room at Third Man #
Apr 18 – Knoxville, TN @ The Pilot Light #
Apr 19 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle - Back Room #
Apr 23 – Chattanooga, TN @ Cherry Street Tavern
Apr 24 – Greenwood, MS @ Hush Puppy Music Co-op
Apr 25 – Birmingham, AL @ Woodlawn Theatre
Apr 26 – Charlotte, NC @ Tipsy Burro

^ Dead Gowns
* Merce Lemon
# Styrofoam Winos

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