Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0122 (August 29, 2025)

I’m off to an estate sale and in dire need of a new stereo receiver, so you get these three reviews, gratis, while I try my luck against holiday traffic and untested electronics sold by untrustworthy relatives. Enjoy, have a great weekend, I’ll see you next Tuesday.

Heathen Disco: PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 USA // [email protected]

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THE BETHS Straight Line Was a Lie LP (Anti-)

Stepping into a higher tax bracket, The Beths debut a bigger sound that plays to their strengths, half a record of the hard-charged guitar pop they became known for, with special toothiness to the guitar and real presence with a great drummer and that fast foot of theirs. In the spirit of Sugar, Superchunk circa On the Mouth and Foolish, and the better Matthew Sweet albums (Girlfriend, 100% Fun), the drive of their rhythm section sets them far apart from most bands in this space. As with the last three albums, half the record is given to raging pop and the other half to something more sensitive – here, a moving pastoral about a natural disaster (“Mosquitoes”) and this excellent, syncopated early ‘90s Britpop chorus-pedal jangler (“Til My Heart Stops”) being the standouts. The Beths are more or less critically bulletproof, and if they just keep refining what they’ve got, it doesn’t really matter so long as they stay on course; they’re the rare group that had it figured out more or less from the jump, to where any significant deviations from their path are too big of a gamble. If this were even nothing more than product, in an era where risk is mitigated by fudging the numbers rather than addressing the flaws, it’s a quality one.

ORCUTT/SHELLEY/MILLER s/t LP (Silver Current)

(out Sept 5th)

The coasts have gotten a taste of this surprising power trio, captured here live last spring at L.A.’s Zebulon, which we can now all enjoy, but the real shock here is finding Bill Orcutt, whose style has been more launching thousands of barbed-wire tumbleweeds in every direction at the highest speed possible, coming down to celebrate the wastes left in his wake by anchoring some of the most straightforward rock music he’s ever been part of. It’s more of an existential surprise. Steve Shelley and Ethan Miller are more than up for the challenge of steering this enterprise on drums and bass, but it’s to Orcutt’s credit that these instrumental jams don’t lose much of the tempestuousness found in his duos with Chris Corsano or the historic gas-powered guillotine that was Harry Pussy; they’re just down near the Crazy Horse sorta level, and for a band that would otherwise choogle, we get a scorch instead, a couple of inflection points in where to take it next, but never once capitulating to a lack of rigor.

PRODROME “Ferrofluid” b/w “Telomere” DL (self-released)

This Minneapolis electronic duo’s first release is vague in my mind, and going back to it I remember why – it was a noble if far too busy attempt to shove 10 modules into a five-slot Eurorack. This new single ably corrects course; the duo is no longer afraid to let the music breathe, and the result is electrofunk that works as intended. Both tracks feature stern, syncopated beats and laser/smoke synths that slam with a cause rather than crowd themselves out.

Now get outta here! — Doug M