Review & Full Album Premiere: Fistula, Galaxies of Disappointment
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on March 10th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Ohio sludge malevolents Fistula release their 11th full-length, Galaxies of Disappointment, this Friday, March 10, with vinyl on Totem Cat Records and cassettes through Bastard Premonition Tapes. And if you’re the type to look at the world around you in absolute visceral disgust, hang your head at the new depths and lows human beings seem to take such stupid delight in discovering hour by hour and feel sick to your stomach, Fistula are there and have been for the better part of the last 30 years. In any incarnation — and lineup changes aren’t necessarily constant, but happen — Fistula remain among the most scathing the Midwestern underground has to offer, with a bite and hard-drugs nod that still sound like sludge taken to its logical, misanthropic extremity. With founding drummer Corey Bing (Sollubi, Morbid Wizard, Ultralord, many others) as the mainstay, guitarists Scott Stearns (also Sollubi, Morbid Wizard, Ultralord, and also many others) and Greg Bacher, bassist Greg “Buddy” Peel (who’s been with them at least a decade now) and vocalist Shane Post (Bird of Ill Omen), the procession is punishing enough to meet the high standard the band have set in that regard, and revels in it with a catharsis most people’s minds would be unable to process even if they were inclined to try.
Opener “You Were Abused… And So On” and “The Unhappy Man,” then, aren’t throwing shit by happenstance, and as they draw a line from punk and hardcore through tonal morass into a pummel that would be death metal if it wanted, Fistula are for sure in their element. Galaxies of Disappointment runs like a seven-track/36-minute endurance test, and it’s one that many, many people who take it on will fail. That’s always been the case, and the level of disaffection in Post‘s raw-throated, high-register screams, in the wash of the cymbals and the distorted rumble of bass at the outset of “Expire” are prime examples of how Fistula occupy their own place in the annals of fuckall. If it seems like I’m speaking in hyperbole, congratulations, you get it. Stylistically, that’s exactly how Fistula operate — they are all in on the in-dark-hallways violence and harshness; letup is rare to the point of nonexistence, and the most accessible
thing about Galaxies of Disappointment is that it’s under 40 minutes long — and as they make a centerpiece of the 11-minute title-track, the caustic lumber is like running facefirst into a wall of loathing, trading out the ripper sensibility of “You Were Abused… And So On” for longer-form fire-setting.
Samples are peppered into “Something Real” — the stuff of classic sludge metal — from the 1985 movie Mask and I don’t know where, portraying the outsider, positioning the band as ‘other,’ not that the song surrounding didn’t. There’s a kind of punched-numb feeling after “Galaxies of Disappointment” and the clear (sampled) speech in “Something Real” grounds some, but the onslaught gets correspondingly nastier, so no worries. The penultimate “You Take” follows and ups the tempo some, with Post again losing his fucking mind in sustained, largely indecipherable screaming, and more omnidirectional rage, while closer “Fool’s Choice” slows down slightly and thickens up the low end enough to sound bigger without actually cutting the pace all that much until a quick bass-and-vocals-and-noise break turns around to a slower roll. That seems for a time to be how they’re going to end it, but ultimately they bring “Fool’s Choice” back around to that break and play off that again to cap in as noisy and skin-peeling as possible. You couldn’t ask for more.
The album’s on the player below and you can hear it if you’re feeling bold, but here’s the thing about Fistula: someone’s going to tell you they don’t give a shit. With such pervasive antieverythingism, they might even tell you themselves. But a band like this doesn’t exist for 28 years if the people behind it don’t on some level in fact care very deeply about the expression, the sound, the physicality of the music in their lives. It’s not that Fistula don’t give a shit. What they portray is actively against norms, and the key word is active. They can proffer all the disdain in the world, but they’re still making art from it, and that is a creative rather than destructive process, as destructive as the art itself may feel.
Something to think about while you pound your brains with the record premiering here, followed by more from the PR wire. Please enjoy:
Fistula, Galaxies of Disappointment album premiere
Ohio’s Fistula return with yet another devastating collection of raw punk/sludge/doom on their latest album, titled Galaxies of Disappointment. Marking album number 11, along with countless EPs and splits, since their 1998 inception, Fistula have been impressively prolific to say the least, while also teetering on the edge of obscurity. It’s no easy feat being a band that long and steadily churning out consistent top-notch releases, despite line-up changes, but Fistula – with Corey Bing at the helm – have done it over and over again, and this album is no exception.
Created over the past few years while on hiatus from playing shows, Galaxies of Disappointment features Fistula’s intense and distinct brand of pure, grimy, noisy punk combined with NOLA-esque sludge and gnarly, nihilistic doom. The album is comprised of seven relentless new tracks, incorporating a balanced mix of heavy, mid-tempo aggression with groove-filled low and slow crawling misery. Fistula keep things simple, as all good sludge should be, yet the shift in tempos maintains interest and unpredictability, while the musicianship is legitimately tight throughout.
Each track is as ugly and nasty and Fistula’s moniker suggests. Acidic fuzzed-out guitars and scathing noise are coupled with blood-pumping drums and corrosive vocals, which creates an intense, vitriolic listening experience akin to the likes of crust-sludge legends Dystopia. Even during the moments the tempo slows down, Fistula’s crushing intensity still grabs you by the throat and never lets go. Completely visceral and abrasive, Galaxies of Disappointment is the sonic equivalent to the despondent world we live in. Bing says, “These songs weren’t supposed to see the light of day, it was just a time where this music reflects the life around us, and we just document it.”
Fistula now also have a reinvigorated line-up, with Bing holding it down as the only original member, and they are once again returning to playing live. He says, “We have been getting tons of emails and texts with people showing us love and wanting us to tour and exist again and it is flattering that anyone gives two shits about the noise we make. I’m fortunate anyone cares.”
Galaxies of Disappointment is being released on vinyl courtesy of Totem Cat Records in France. CDs self-released by the band and tapes handled by Bastard Premonition Tapes. (Press release written by Denise McCready.)
Fistula 2026:
Stearns – Guitar
Bing – Drums
Peel – Bass
Post – Vocals
Bacher – Guitar
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