In a world where albums swell past an hour just to justify a streaming playlist, ‘Where The Rubbish Goes’ feels like a dare. The record comes in, tears the place apart, and vanishes before anyone notices. It’s a gorgeous mess, though.
Martin Meyer is no stranger to the underground. He ran Lumpy Records and fronted Lumpy And The Dumpers, which helped shape a loose, scrappy kind of punk that treated sloppiness as a form of honesty. Soup Activists is where he’s headed next, with the mischief intact and a little less of the old chaos, so the songs have sturdier bones.
Having been recorded at the Lodge, an old Masonic hall in Dayton, Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati, the setting suits it oddly well. The majority of the record is Meyer himself: he wrote every song but one and played everything except a few guest parts, which is a surprise considering how communal it sounds. Engineered and mixed by John Hoffman and mastered by Greg Obis, between them they kept things bright and forward without leveling off the lumps, the right instinct for music so fond of rough edges.
“Play Revelry” opens with a title that could be a mission statement, and the song lives up to it, charging out of the gate at the carefree speed of someone who’s already decided not to apologize. “Chateau Kids” follows, with Maura Weaver on backing vocals, her voice lifting the chorus just enough to turn a good hook into a shout-along. The title sounds like a made-up neighborhood full of fancy-sounding delinquents running loose, and the music matches that bratty, sweet energy.
“Typical Flowers” lasts barely a minute and a half and might be the cleverest bit of economy on the album. Most songwriters would have padded it. Meyer lets a bright, ringing guitar line say what it needs to say and then lets the song go, like a perfectly thrown paper airplane: short flight, total joy. “Angelyne” comes next, named after a famously enigmatic Los Angeles figure, with a similar wry affection for odd characters who build their own mythology. “The Castle” adds a touch of storybook fantasy, the kind of title that conjures towers made of cardboard.
The emotional turn comes with “Johnny,” barely two and a half minutes long. Meyer wrote it after a European tour as a salute to a close friend and bandmate of nearly two decades. Simple logic dictates that rock history is crowded with songs about guys named Johnny, so his own Johnny was owed one, too. The music carries that reasoning straight through, warm, fast and unguarded. Songs written for real friends have a particular glow, and this one has it. Two minutes of affection at full speed is somehow more moving than plenty of slow-motion ballads.
“It’s For You” keeps the momentum, and then “Amnesia” turns heads. It’s a cover of a Hiss Explosion tune written by Michael Brasell, with Kellen Baker of Good Flying Bird tearing off the lead guitar. Baker’s solo burns, wild and bright, and the choice of cover says something about where Meyer sits in a regional lineage of Ohio Valley rock. This is a scene that passes songs from hand to hand, and the lodge in Dayton has become another room in that long house. “The Wayback” follows with a stomping, marching pulse that sounds built for a packed basement, all heavy boots and happy noise.
“Sugarcube” brings in even more help. Lily Burdick adds backing vocals, and Hoffman steps out from behind the console to play Mellotron, whose old tape-driven strings give the arrangement a woozy, vintage sweetness. It’s a smart flourish, the one spot on the record where things soften into something almost dreamy. The closer, “Hair 2000,” has a title that sounds like a lost fashion catalog, a gleeful bit of nonsense that lets the record end on a wink instead of a sermon. What lingers after ‘Where The Rubbish Goes’ is a feeling of generosity. Meyer has spent years building scenes, releasing other people’s records and playing rooms where the stage was the floor, and he’s made an album that sounds happy to be here. It doesn’t strain for importance. It just plays, loud and bright, and leaves the door open behind it.
Releases November 13, 2026
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