Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0091 (May 6, 2025)

Hey folks. I find myself kinda cooked at the moment, so here’s a record I’ve been enjoying and a leap backwards to 2008, when I had the foresight to quit my job just before the recession landed.

Newer music on the horizon, just collecting my thoughts. Keep it coming and thanks to those who send it: [email protected] // PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 USA

I appreciate you.

SWAMI JOHN REIS Time to Let You Down LP (Swami)

I’ve seen Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes several times, Drive Like Jehu once, Plosivs as well, and probably the Night Marchers and/or The Sultans, plus his seasons of Yo Gabba Gabba when I was with toddler, so I am well-versed in just about every trick John Reis could pull out of his book. Grief is a new one, though, and on Time to Let You Down, his first album since the passing of his longtime foil Rick Froberg, a sensibility comes in that doesn’t exactly click with the party/rock & roll entertainment vibes of the past. You wouldn’t know it to listen, but you can almost hear a kind of raggedness in his voice that belies the whiplash of the music therein, from assort-a-billy to serious wrist-rocket mashdowns on songs that were probably destined for a Hot Snakes record (“Basement Envy,” “Fed to the Dogs,” and the two closers, especially “Heartbeats,” where you can imagine Rick’s equally ragged, sinuous voice screamin’ over top). The consistency of Reis’ efforts without Rick only makes how the music he made with him stand out more; Rick gave them both license to do something more intense. Whereas RFTC might leave you with a hickey, the stuff with Rick turns a sickly yellow/purple rainbow within days of impact, like a paintball bruise on the ass. Here he bridges those two worlds, because it had to happen.

After the jump, some finest-kind retail writing and some thoughts from today.