Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0100 (June 10, 2025)

I’ve already exhausted some of the “So It’s Come To This: A Heathen Disco Clip Show” goodwill. You may see more of that in the weeks to come, as my life dissembles and gets put back together a mile and a half away. (I’m getting this out early today because I gotta start painting bedrooms tonight). But yeah, it’s pretty much been one year since I started this, so I’m gonna call it what it is: an anniversary, a CENTURY in review writing. I’m so glad that so many of you didn’t chump out and chose to keep following what I’m putting down. Thank you, thank you, thank you. (And yes, I know who backed out, and with a few understandable exceptions, I DO NOT FORGET).

Keep ‘em comin’ so I can keep ‘em comin’: [email protected] / PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625

Why don’t you subscribe today? I’ve lasted longer than any of you thought. Worth celebrating!

This one’s gonna be a freebo today. Enjoy! Keep fighting what needs to be fought. You know what to do.

PULP More LP (Rough Trade)

When Pulp could’ve sensibly made an arena-size record, they were anything but – even after the relative success of Different Class – and pivoted to the quiet, dark This Is Hardcore, throwing a bucket of cold water they’d been keeping on ice since like 1986 on the pageantry of the Oasis/Britpop era. Now in 2025, with the possibility that they’ll never get the chance again (hey, not everyone can be Sparks), here is that big, grand, sweeping effort. It still sounds like Pulp – still a sing-a-long band – but with the scope befitting their latest round of touring, with big room dynamics and the string sections and soulful background singers that once detoured former labelmates Tindersticks for a spell. It’s good, it’s Pulp, it’s Jarvis and company (RIP Steve Mackey) out there kickin’ the tires, but unlike their ‘90s output, it seems engineered, and unusually horny for this band – the stretch from the slap bass of “Slow Jam” to the illicit romance of “Farmers Market,” and the aggravation of “My Sex” culminating in the anxious frustration of “Got to Have Love” are unusually instructive for this band. These songs can easily slot in with the other ones you’ll hear in their live set, which for now is no longer just a celebration of their catalogue. They’ve never operated with this little of a remove from the audience before, and it may take some getting used to, but c’mon ... it’s a Pulp record. It’s good in a “not bad” sorta way, and right now that’s all you can hope for.

SPARKS MAD! LP (Transgressive)

But here we have a band on their 56th year and 27th studio album, insisting from the outset that they are “gonna do things my own way.” Maybe no musicians, save the brothers Mael, can confidently make that claim; certainly no band is owed more a debt than Sparks for their endless fount of creativity and cheek, for the scenes and genres they helped to usher in, and their ability to still turn the wheel. MAD! extends the “let’s see what other sounds these synths can make” notions from The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte, their studio/live outfit confidently in tow, generating another batch of impossibly perceptive pop songs. I’d posit it’s their best since Hippopotamus, and maybe a little more, from orchestral slashers about traffic to an organ grinder called “Running Up a Tab at the Hotel for the Fab” which musically wouldn’t sound too out of place on a late ‘00s Fall album (and coincidentally would’ve slotted in on that new Pulp album). My suspicion is that anytime Sparks is concerned about something (like getting old), they make an album out of it (A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip) that thematically and narratively exorcises those concerns, leaving them free to tackle the next problem. It’s a hell of a system. May they play until they’re the age of Maureen in “Tips For Teens,” and beyond.

SCIENCE MAN Monarch Joy LP (Swimming Faith)

Time to refocus on the Swimming Faith crew of Buffalo, NY. Last time I checked in with Science Man, it was a project that was writing and recording songs with synths and samples in the back of the van between Alpha Hopper gigs on tour. Guitarist/front John Toohill made quite a racket in doing so, but it always felt a little like the air was being drained from the space. Evolving into an actual band did the project wonders, and though there’s still a little cirque du freaque sort of element to the music as it runs up and down its vertiginous heights, it certainly makes for a raging hardcore-post-hardcore shard, ripping open the seats and letting the collective sweats escape. Pounding drums (d-beat/pit style, mostly), firestorm guitars but no purity here, as this one’s indebted to lifetimes steeped in music that started heavy and only got heavier over time. My track is “How the Butcher Gets Paid” (reminded me of Leather) but all of this works and it’s over before you know it, ready to be flipped and played again.

FIB Heavy Lifting LP (Julia’s War)

Let’s go back ten years to when Omni’s first album Deluxe came out. They had an extremely specific approach to the trio post-punk dynamic: clipped, precise, technical, cymbal-catching, with a lineage that stretched back to Deerhunter, so they had the right place and time. They were hardly the first to go down this path – the Preoccupations / Viet Cong /  Women tree was dropping this fruit all over, though to a torn edge which studied its marks. But Omni was the first band of their distinct pre-hell era to tie this up in a business-like bow, keep it clean, maybe go interview for a job or attend a hopeful first date. It was rubber-stamped, efficient, and very specific (chorus/flange pedal use, a return to the gum-chewing trig homework of the ‘90s, but with a sense of purpose, like they weren’t getting up there to show us how well they could play. I heard Omni’s record over a lot of PA’s that summer, and I’m guessing a lot of other people did too, and they started bands: PALM, Crumb, Chandelier, Fake Spam, etc., to where this is now a thing that bands do to varying degrees of intensity. If I can name more than two bands with the same sound, then some dudes out there got teeth that BITE. Some use synths, some don’t. Some went to music school. Whatever. The point is, I put on this FIB record and it sounded so much like Omni that I had to go back and make sure this wasn’t them pitched up a bit, right down to the vocals. Sure, I like it fine, because I like that Omni record. These guys have the chops to play this sorta thing super fast and precise (impressive in its own right), and y’know, who owns music anyway, but don’t people want their own thing? Can anyone else sing?

Where does this get you? Were all the other pedals out of stock? Is there a giant hole in the market for bands that need to sound exactly like this? Where does this get them – all the venues that can’t host Omni on the same day and date? Not all the combinations of notes and sounds and approaches have been used up yet, and it seems to take a hell of a lot just to get a younger generation into the idea of playing music in the first place. Do we have to Temu-fy indie rock like this?

CIVIC Chrome Dipped LP (ATO)

Civic busted out into the world with an incredible EP (2018’s New Vietnam) and bucked a lot of odds to both sign to a major, align themselves under the King Lizzard/Amyl & the Sniffies conglomerate, AND still find a path to stand out, simply by mowing down the crowds with the kind of sunburnt Australian rock that their parents, aunts and uncles and probably grandparents enjoyed. The surprise was that there was no surprise; THIS was a market gap ably filled. Chrome Dipped is the sound of their bodies breaking down and their will going soft. This is the sort of record you make in a hurry – let the artifice take over, take the air out of the drums, slow everything down, acoustic intros, setting the mood, random feedback tracks in the middle of a record. There’s a couple towards the end that seem to remember the muscle memory of how they used to play, but if you’re not gonna do anything unique with it, what’s the point of making a slower record when you’re known for your speed and gnarl? Was there some sort of signature song that allowed for this pivot? Or did you just get tired?

Zzzzzzzz… — Doug M