Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0095 (May 20, 2025)

Summer can’t get started, but dust storms and felled trees are on the menu. I am moving in less than a month and haven’t packed a thing. Record reviews are at this point a form of procrastination and I am here for it. You too. Thanks for the subscribes, keep ‘em coming, keep that music coming too.

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GRACE ROGERS Mad Dogs LP (Sophomore Lounge)

Wonderful, sweetly ornery, country-tuned set from an artist we probably wouldn’t have heard from if not for this label, save being in Kentucky in the proper hours. This is Grace Rogers’ debut as far as we know, and despite having played traditional folk/bluegrass and singer-songwriter sets there’s no evidence of being in a band, breaking away from that band and heading off solo, which is rare and kind of refreshing, since the baggage that can leave behind is supplanted with a nervous excitement of what’s possible. Grace’s backing band, a tough, mostly electric trio kitted out with the occasional cello, is up to the task at hand, to color-match this first impression with a sturdy confidence, and that they do, working up Americana left turns and a sparking jaunt, built to open shows and catch heads unassuming. It’s the turns that really work this set, like the title track and how it dives out of any direct roots influence and plays like the fumes of racing the roads straight out of wherever this is. At once Grace and co. can humbly, cleverly compete with just about anybody out there in the spaces this music occupies.

The rest is below.