Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0126 (September 12, 2025)

Good time of year to bust out those Third World War albums, huh.

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After the break, I finish with the Lactamase series of 10”s, but here’s reviews of five new ones, gratis. Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya!

HIDE Spit or Swallow Every Soul Will Taste Death LP/7” (Get Better)

Apocalyptic Chicago noise/industrial duo HIDE come back leaner and meaner after a four-year absence with their most punishing and transgressive effort. The previous two albums had this fascination with these anticipatory pauses through the heaving crush of whenever Heather Hannoura was truth-telling over the sternest of beats, and that’s still happening at times (you’ll get a bit on “Every Soul Will Taste Death”) but Seth Sher’s programming breaks have more depth and substance this time, adding more variety to the rivetheadedness of it all (which is what should happen over time) and the monochrome aspects of their compositions are now fully open to the most visceral shades of the color wheel. In turn, Hannoura’s lyrics have evolved beyond the anxieties and retributions of Interior Terror, and fully embrace the path of complete annihilation and eternal remembrance. The group sounds incredible after a time, and even when the beats die down the tracks hang together, to where even chops of “Moonlight Sonata” and “Ave Maria” find a place in this realm. Even at their most intense moments, there is still a way inside of this music, one which may flense off all your skin, but in those seconds of being born anew, you’ll know why you came here.

FADENSONNEN “Nitroglycerin” b/w “I’m the Knife” 7” (Fadensonnen)

Every missive from PD and co. busts out of the mailbox like one of the Phantasm spheres, and this new 7” (“for the rockers!” they say) is hardly the exception. “Nitroglycerin” sprays its musk all over for 4+ minutes of Japanese-influenced psych muscle (dig that bass), a primal pounding rhythm, and lacerating guitar sliding all over the top, like Trumans Water getting sideswiped by Gaseneta. If “I’m the Knife” is the residue of whatever chemical reaction went down on the A-side, it’s no less busy, a hollow shell of what came before which gets obliterated by a rippin’ guitar lead. Neither side can sit still for too long; this is the kind of noise rock that’s of use now, one that destroys rather than upholds the crumbling supports of Am Rep/grunge/pigfuck-influenced nowheres.

NAPE NECK The Shallowest End LP (Dot Dash Sounds/Red Wig)

(out Sept 19th)

First full-length following two vertiginous EPs out of this Leeds trio (where Gang of Four came from, fittingly), bringing back the knotted compositions and studda-step cowbell syncopation of groups like the Dog Faced Hermans and Dawson. A thicker production puts more bass in the mix and more dimension in the drumming; “Pylon” sounds like someone taking a belt sander (or maybe a vibrator, Reeve Gabrels style) to the guitar strings. Active minds, hands and feet scrape out the tones of liberation, one complex arrangement after another. Hoping the stars align for a live appearance (they’re here during Silkworm Week) but even the breeze of these songs racing past gives me a good feeling of activist communities pushing bullshit off the plate so all can join.

JIM SHEPARD Panties and Perfume LP (Smudge)

It took a while but at long last another point in the curve closer to the axis has been located for the late rock savant Jim Shepard. Panties and Perfume is a rough assemblage for sure, but from all the selections that’ve fallen out between Photograph Burns and the end, it’s one of the more flavorful offerings you’ll find. Part of the magic is that there’s never been a barrel of Shepard’s that can’t be scraped clean for smokeable resin: ideas for songs that never came to pass, sketches, spoken word and field recordings, a whirlwind noiser called “Treena’s Strobe Light Party” recorded live in Cambridge, Mass., and some real burners on the B-side (the poem “My Mom As a Nurse” and the roundabout journey of “Drummer Audition #7” back into the somber piano composition “Jehricho Overture” and churner “Habit,” which sounds like Mark E. Smith asking for pizza on the back of VU & Nico, on the album’s sweetest stretch). I can’t say that these journeys deeper into a mind that decided it’d had enough are fun or easy times to face, nor that anyone needs to don the mantle of that mindset as a prereq for listening; opener “Camera Pulls Back for Big Shot” is too ripe an offering to start anything. But it is what it is, there’s probably enough copies of this to go around for anyone deeply interested, and unlike the other big posthumous work Motorcycle Movie, you won’t wish to pass away after listening.

WILL LAWRENCE Rooftops in the Centerfold LP (Triangle House/Sophomore Lounge)

(out Sept 19)

Agreeable, faded afternoon pastorals from singer-songwriter Lawrence, a NY state figure who’s involved with Ryan Davis’ Roadhouse ensemble and comedian John Early’s sometimes-band The Lemon Squares. Like clothes hanging off the line in summer, it’s pretty natural stuff, like Emitt Rhodes on an old tractor, or Midlake without the delusional ego, a rich seam with CSN and John Lennon’s “Woman” at the top and more obscure parlour pop hiding beneath. For quiet times and settled moments, this will do it, and Lawrence is a good player with the right ear for this stuff. Other times, when the wind picks up, this will simply blow away from your reach, so enjoy it with that notion.

Below the jump, as promised, coverage of those last four records in the Lactamase series.