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Aug 30, 2023 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Tim Bugbee

Eldridge Rodriguez first began as a solo songwriting moniker for Cameron Keiber, formerly of Boston noise rock outfit The Beatings. Later, Cameron brought together a full live band with Clayton Keiber on guitar, Dennis Grabowski on drums, and Dave Grabowski on bass and synths, debuting the new lineup with their 2015 album, The Castrati Menace. The band then followed with 2020’s politically charged, Slightest of Treason. Next month, the band are back with another new album, Atrophy, due out September 15th via Midriff Records, Clayton and Cameron Keiber’s record label.

The band have already shared a pair of new singles from the album, “A Feeling That Won’t Go Away” and “The Strange Things That Happen to People.” Today, they are also sharing a listen to their new single, “Without All Your Teeth You Can’t Get Into Heaven.”

“Without All Your Teeth You Can’t Get Into Heaven” sees the band working with sweet and melodic jangle pop influences, furnishing the band’s songwriting in celestial bells, organs, and honeyed guitar lines. As Grabowski describes, “Like any good church song we tricked it out with a bell solo and an organ we found and tried to make it all gold and glossy like in actual heaven.” That inviting sheen brightens the band’s darker undercurrents, though the fuzzy guitar tones and Keiber’s crooning vocal performance also offer some alluring contrasting shades to the track.

Similarly, the track’s lyrics offer a tongue-in-cheek reflection on religion and materialism, with Keiber singing how without a perfect set of teeth, beautiful clothes, and an array of contacts, you’ll never get to heaven. Later he sings, “No matter how you try / Not to curse or tell a lie / The truth is when you die / You’ll need your things in heaven / The weight of your soul / Against what you stole.” Keiber simply says of the track, “Not in the history of human existence has a more self-explanatory song been written.”

Check out the song below, out everywhere today. Atrophy is out on September 15th via Midriff Records.