Review DEAD PIONEERS ‘Dead Pioneers’

Gregg Deal is a nationally known Indigenous artist of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and Dead Pioneers is an extension of a performance piece called “The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy”. With the original intention of creating music for the performance a totally new project started – Dead Pioneers. Together with guitarist Josh Rivera and drummer Shane Zweygardt, Deal started to work on music and the final boost came with bassist Lee Tesche joining the band.

A few months ago, Dead Pioneers launched their debut album which is a great piece of music … and more. The four-piece connects serious content with spoken words and a raging punk blast. ‘Bad Indian’ was the first song that has been revealed and it reflects the entire approach of Dead Pioneers. Deal addresses his own Indigenous history and isn’t afraid of thematizing hard social and political issues. Some of the tracks on the debut are spoken words parts while ‘Rage’ and ‘This is Not a Political Song’ are furious and angry punk tunes with infectious energy.

Within its 22-minute running time ‘Dead Pioneers’ is one of the most intense and honest albums I have heard in quite a while. I had to think about bands like Rage Against The Machine while listening to this release that I fully can recommend to everybody who cares and love punk rock.