If there is any justice, this album is destined to be on album of the year lists across the globe for 2025. Dead Pioneers are out to set the record straight, a band not afraid to raise their heads above the parapet and tell it like it is. These songs reveal the true account of American history past and present, a much needed adjustment of the white-washed “American as apple pie” version of the USA that Presidents present, and past, and the genocide denying lies of the silver screen will have you believe.
Apart from redneck Amerikkka, those of us with our sanity intact around the rest of the US and beyond are looking on in shock and disbelief as the future takes on a dystopian slant with the orange one m, and his brainwashed cronies in charge. What the vast majority of white America and the rest of the white world doesn’t appreciate is that the true, indigenous Americans have lived in a dystopian world for centuries, since those brave pioneers arrived in the new world and created the so-called modern and civilised America. A modern America based on genocide and the massacre of indigenous Americans. How very civil. And the feckless idiot in charge of the US today whines about so-called illegal immigration…oh the irony, while actively supporting a new genocide of another indigenous people on the other side of the world.
I know a lot of people close their eyes to the problems of the world and, understandably, enjoy their music as an escape from the harsh realities of life. I’ve no qualms with using music as a form of escape, however, I love music to have a point, a incompetent message to drive home, a raison d’être, and boy do Dead Pioneers have a message to tell. Don’t let anyone tell you music and politics don’t mix. Po$t American is a triumph across the board, this certainly isn’t a case of content over substance. They’ve certainly got the messages in bucketloads and to top it off, they have a furious attitude fuelled musicality, a punk rock rage to match the tone of the lyrics. That’s not to say the band are a one trick pony, the toned down, spoken word tracks in the album pack just as much punch and exude an equal level of fury as the full pedal to the floor adrenaline fuelled rockers. In fact, some of them may actually be even more powerful for that very reason, encouraging the listener to focus more on the importance of the lyrical messages contained within.
Across the 15 tracks on the album there is no quarter given or punches pulled, right from the opening couplet in the title track which gives a warts and all perspective of life in the good old US of A in 2025, attacking everything from white supremacy through to “giant toddlers with demands”, no idea who they could mean… Po$t American ends abruptly but the visceral energy and vitriol continues into My Spirit Animal Ate Your Spirit Animal, opening with a no minced words quote “stoopid fuckin’ white man” leading into a perfectly constructed attack on cultural appropriation. If you’re in any doubt about the messages behind the album after the first few songs you deserve to be dubbed with the title described on this song’s opening…
The minute long Pit Song takes the raw punk attitude up several notches, with the band creating a deadly Dead Kennedy’s like thunder, before they unleash one of the most powerful songs on the album lyrically. The Caucasity. A tale as old as time, it relates a situation to the listener of when Gregg Deal, while public speaking about the cause of Indigenous Americans, is interrupted by a young white man. The song, backed by an intense driving rhythm goes on to talk of the ignorance of white people making the “blacks and browns” the enemy, while not questioning their own miseducation, and failing to understand their white privilege, or what that even means. Is it any wonder in this world that books like Reno Eddo-Lodge’s I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race have to be written? The song also alludes to a topic covered in the following song…
That subject is the twisting of the narrative by the silver screen and all the cowboy movies that painted the white man, like John Wayne, as the hero, fighting off their so-called savages. Mythical Cowboys strips away all the myths lying bare the Hollywood lies and the man behind the myth, the real John Wayne who at the core was a problematic bigoted racist. Musically it a blistering sonorous cacophony of furiously crunching guitar with a booming rhythm section. Talking of blistering cacophony, Dead Pioneers is a feverish high octane romp advocating the return of stolen lands… I could use the phrase the only good pioneer is a dead pioneer here…
I should point out, while not falling into any “but what about…” tropes, I already know too many people that would start an argument or debate down that line, this isn’t a “we hate white people” album. What it is though is utterly thought provoking, it is a forthright statement of what is wrong with many white attitudes towards anyone who is different to them, spoken from the perspective of someone who first hand has been in the firing line of abuse, hatred and racism. I’m not naive enough to say listening to this album will initiate a road to Damascus moment for any white supremacists or dyed in the wool racist, but anything that tackles these prejudices is surely a good thing? This album should be part of an education piece, along with literature like the aforementioned Eddo-Lodge text. Hey, there’s also the fact it’s just fucking good music. On that topic, White Whine is as powerful as its predecessor Caucasity, its topic similar, the spoken word track serious in its intent and delivered with a passion. The closing, and best line of the song is the killer… “I don’t drink, but my favourite white whine is all lives matter”.
Mythical Cowboys isn’t the only reference to the movies here, with Juicy Fruit (Ode to Chief Bromden) alluding to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the key kicker line here being “Juicy Fruit, you got played…” STFU is another sub 60 second angry punk attitude fuelled rant against all the tired old fear mongering clichés plied by racist muppets. It fades into another heartfelt spoken word track in the shape of Bloodletting Carnival highlighting the unbelievably hypocritical standards held by some…
On Love Language, the band joins forces with feminist punks The Petrol Girls to create an impressively compelling anthem speaking out against the patriarchy, Ren Aldridge taking over the lead vocals halfway through to list the lies and untruths spouted by politicians, and wider society and backed up by the msm.
Fire and Ash is one of the most affecting songs on the whole album, the mention of pronouns reflects issues that are as current in the UK as in the US. Deals vocal delivery on this sounds like it is cracking with emotion at times, clearly a difficult song for him to sing. As we reach the end of the album, penultimate song Working Class Warfare is an uplifting call to arms that rails against the evils of Capitalism, and the widening gap between the haves and have nots.
The album closes in style with a final set of commanding words from Deal on Untitled Spoken Word No. 2. Sit up and listen to what he has to say. And take heed. This has to be one of the most important records of the year. I know I’ll be accused of virtue signalling by some after all, I come from the group that causes most of the world’s ills, white cis males. The sooner more people sit up and listen the better, be part of the change, don’t close your ears and your mind. Don’t be fooled by the lies and the bullshit. That’s why the world is in such a fucked up mess. Let’s hope there is a better world Post Po$t American…
Good find, Mr Quiff, and great review. Love their narrative reversal.