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  • Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0064 (January 31, 2025)

Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0064 (January 31, 2025)

Lengthening the attention span: Shrapnel, The Stars, and more

Super busy times over here at HD HQ as I start to scale down and look for my next home. Records flying out the door, kinda unreal, and I’ve only gotten through the C’s. Work has got me slammed and I found time at lunch to hammer this one out.

But do keep me in mind: I am excited to listen to your record and maybe write about it. Make that happen — [email protected] // PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 USA

Here’s a taste … the rest’ll cost ya (not very much though).

MAYBE see some of you tomorrow (Saturday) at the GMan Tavern here in Chicago for a 1995 kinda night: Arcwelder, J. Robbins, Deep Tunnel Project and Jon Langford, for John Mohr’s birthday.

Also will be DJing an incredible gig this spring, more details on that to come.

NEW DISCOS

THE LAUGHING CHIMES Whispers in the Speech Machine LP (Slumberland)

Latter-day Slumberland releases fit into one of two buckets: pop bands that let their personal charms underline their specific brand of music (like The Umbrellas), or bands that mostly absorb into artifice to get the sounds in their head out to the world (like Torrey, or to some extent The Reds, Pinks and Purples, who might be standing in both buckets). The Laughing Chimes fit into the latter category, a majestic wheatfield wave from southeast Ohio that on their second record dig postholes into early REM and The Church (Heyday era), so that we feel every snag of the plectrum against that 12-string. Lest you think I am getting too specific, this is exactly where they should be, a thread dropped by most bands in the past 10-15 years, a plaintive earnestness that might have you think about The Ocean Blue rather than have to listen to them (the former is the true path, because bands never sound as good as when you haven’t heard them yet and can only imagine what they can do).

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