(Self-released, digital)
Singer-songwriter Matt Bushlow’s folk-rock project Sulk Fangs has steadily picked up steam since debuting with 2022’s References EP. He dropped three more EPs in 2023, followed by the excellent Where the River Goes the following year.
Bushlow’s first LP, Remind Me of Who I Was, continues a fine run of songwriting and sonic experimentation. For the new record, the Burlington resident looked to his past, taking ideas, snippets and long-abandoned bones of songs and returning to them with a new vigor and focus — and plenty of help from his friends.
“I thought of myself as just beginning to write songs in 2022,” Bushlow told Seven Days in an email. “But I always remembered this phase of my life where I would document ideas on a single track in GarageBand on my white iBook.”
Would that every songwriter had a secret backlog of sounds like Bushlow mined for Remind Me of Who I Was. Starting with opener “Radio Songs,” Bushlow establishes that this is no album of castoffs and unused B-sides. The song kicks into a fuzzed-out jam reminiscent of Scottish indie-rock outfit the Beta Band, balancing an edge with Bushlow’s delicate, laid-back vocal delivery.
Gillian Welch’s “I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll” gets refashioned from an Americana anthem for the “A Prairie Home Companion” set to a Wilco-esque, twee country rocker. Bushlow’s hushed, playful vocals create a clever juxtaposition when he sings “I want to ‘lectrify my soul.”
“Maggie Will” is a duet with Swale vocalist Amanda Gustafson, their voices harmonizing gorgeously as they sing “I know all these changes are so right / except for the ones we undertook last Friday night.” Gustafson’s Swale bandmate Tyler Bolles handles the bass, joining an impressive list of Vermont musicians guesting on the record — 16 in total. Others include drummers Steve Hadeka and Swale’s Jeremy Fredericks, Will Andrews on trumpet, pianist Adam Rabin, and Aya Inoue and Charity Clark providing harmony vocals. The record could have easily turned into another Burlington Does Burlington compilation.
Eric Segalstad, who also coproduced Bushlow’s last EP at his Sabi Sound studio in Colchester, provides guitars throughout the record. He and Bushlow have dialed in the Sulk Fangs sound — a crisp yet folksy tone, like the first truly cold day of autumn. On tunes such as “Where She’s Sleeping,” a ballad that stretches into a mid-tempo jam with Segalstad teasing out some chiming, hanging electric guitar notes, the band sounds simultaneously full and charmingly intimate.
By the final track, “I Couldn’t Walk Away,” a sort of campfire sing-along jam that brings to mind “Iko Iko” and once again features stirring harmony vocals from Gustafson, Bushlow’s repurposed album is revealed as his best. Take it as a sign not to trash all those drafts — you never know what gold is hiding in them.
Remind Me of Who I Was is streaming at sulkfangs.bandcamp.com.
This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2025.
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