Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0099 (June 3, 2025)

Hey gang. Worn down to a nub over here with all that’s going on, but gonna keep pushin’ through with reviews, because I see you reading them and also have reverse looked up all the sites you bookmark. Gross, dude.

Continue on: [email protected] / PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 (a postal location where I witnessed some award-winning customer-on-clerk punishment today, which was so intense that other people came out from the back to see what was wrong).

OK here we go.

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LIFEGUARD Ripped and Torn LP (Matador)

Lifeguard is here to catch the torch and there are several getting thrown, so it’s great to know bands, especially here in Chicago, are out there, mitts open. Coming through with their first full-length following tapes, EPs and singles documenting every phase of their run, you hear the wisdom in waiting on the longer statement. Because guitarist Kai Slater has been so active with Sharp Pins, it’s not hard to hear the same voice and the ‘60s mod mannerisms in this set, but you can’t expect someone with a good upper register to simply blow it all by screaming. The genius part of Lifeguard, particularly the ground shift from the rhythm section of Isaac Lowenstein and Asher Case, is their sense of adventure enough to accept the style and the same sort of gritty production treatment, and use it to encase their rock trio in this dusty, crumbling atmosphere and kicking up as much of it into the air in every song, like somebody who’s been buried in the sand at the beach bursting violently through to the surface and running straight for the water. Producer Randy Randall from No Age fully gets how to weird a rock band dimensionally without burnishing what makes it work, and does an excellent job throwing their songs into the racket, and then the whole thing into another racket. They’ve already gone the clean-sounding route; the artifice applied here set them back from falling anywhere near the emo contingent that would love to claim a band this good to pad out the mersh. Probably not gonna happen. Mission of Burma comes to mind in terms of the lengths Lifeguard is taking to explode the myths (what else are you hearing in “Like You’ll Lose”?). They’ve been together long enough to speak each other’s language, and this might be the best place to immerse yourself in their Berlitz blitz.

More below the jump.