Wagon Burner is the latest album by sensational Native American band Dead Pioneers and follows on from Po$t American that was one of my albums of the year last year. Led by Poet Greg Deal that are quickly becoming one of the most essential bands to be listening to while the USA continues to collapse in on itself. Dead Pioneers are Greg Deal, Shane Zweygardtand, Abe Brennan, Joshua Rivera and Lee Tesche the album was co-produced by Dead Pioneers and Chris Beeble. Recorded at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado.
In between hearing the album for the first time and writing this review I read Race (Blacks And Whites Talk About the Most Crucial issue of Today) by Studs Terkel his examination through interviews of the state of race relations in the USA in the early 1990's, what becomes clear over the 400 pages of the book is how thoroughly the original native population of America has been so thoroughly diminished to only get mentioned about 10 times in the book, the closest Studs comes to talking to a native American is one woman self identifies as half Cherokee, but only so she can claim more benefits, an issue that Dead Pioneers would resolutely take issue with. The fact that at no point do any of the interviewees ever consider the native population, makes this album all the more stark, especially as we are now in a far more dire situation than the one that Reagan and Bush had created back then.
The album opens with Dead Presidents a slow poetic statement about how they don't revere those Dead Presidents but hate all they represent in the subjugation of Native America. Nazi Teeth (Featuring Stephanie Byrne and Cheap Perfume) is industrial guitar rap rock against anyone claiming racial superiority, especially while living in as racially diverse a society as the USA, no matter what you call your version of race theory, Dead Pioneers are ready to punch you in the face and give you a lesson, Stephanie sounds even more angry when she rants over the outro.
A Message For Mr Bell. Is a short statement against the ruling classes and their love of paedophilia and obscene wealth. No Kings continues the theme, making clear that all Americans need to bring down the current fascist masters with coruscating guitars, trying to bring down the system and the oligarchy, making plain that real progress can never happen without electoral reform.
Animals That Roam The Earth asks the question have you spoken your language today, a question the idiot Republicans have made a real issue, by trying to insist anyone living in America speaks English, without ever acknowledging that English isn't the native language of The USA, the erasure of native languages is just another genocide against the red man.
Never Alone (Featuring The Interrupters) a plea to be part of a real family and to look out for each other on sacred ground, this is punch the air anthemic punk for inclusion and collaboration for the good of all.
The Worst Among Us (Feat Jason Williamson/Sleaford Mods) is about Greg appearing at the Smithsonian before the current Trump assault, he already found the story told by The Smithsonian was extremely racist and sought to demean the people oppressed or ethnically cleansed by the invading hordes from Europe, the white colonizers and their imported slave labour, asking why you thought killing them all was a sane policy just to increase your profits.
Seeing Red is about being accused of being angry for the hell of it, this song is the retort, setting your teeth on edge, explaining why his ancestors being scalped, thrown off there land, disenfranchised, othered, killed and maimed, being accused of being mad for wanting to get there lands, language and culture back from the thieving white man, with his cop killers, gun violence and general disgusting behaviour, is he angry, you better believe he is and quite rightly so.
Circle Jerk The Wagons is a bitter screed against anyone stupid enough to bow down to Trump and his cadre of mediaeval thieves and bullies and all their criminality, this is granite core punk.
Zealots is for all those people fighting among themselves for space, hiding behind a keyboard and never actually bringing down the real evil doers. All the petty bullying for the wrong language, behaving just as badly as the pigs you claim to be against.
Nobody is what you should say when asked who your favourite Indian is, he doesn't conform to any of the Indian stereotypes promulgated by Hollywood or in Spaghetti westerns, he will not be defined in the ways American society wants to define him, he is his own man or woman doing things how he wants to, while trying to claim back his ancestral homelands.
The album closes with LFG asking do you believe in the lies the government and mass media tells you, with a great slogan rich sing along chorus, guitar piercing like arrows, the point is made, get even to make even the thickest bourgeois white man, to sit up an listen to the clarion call for community, working to make the community to work for everyone not just a few obscenely rich billionaires, so lets fucking go and take over, build a fairer world than the current appalling shit show we have.
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