Hardcore punk supergroup Dead End America have premiered a new song via Decibel, “Bullet for 45 (Straight from .45).” It’s the second song they’ve shared from the four-track EP they recorded called Crush the Machine, available on October 30 via Southern Lord. The first was “Twitter Troll,” a riff-heavy metal/punk crossover song.
The band is made up of the late Poison Idea drummer Steve “Thee Slayer Hippy” Hanford, former Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri, Ape Machine guitarist Ian Watts, World of Lies frontman/guitarist Tony Avila, Eyehategod vocalist Mike IX Williams and The Accüsed vocalist Blaine Cook.
“Twitter Troll” is wild and dynamic, a rollercoaster of a song with angry lyrics about President Donald Trump’s upper-class background and presence on Twitter. At the climax, the vocalists sing a cheerleader-style call-and-response spelling out Trump’s name, “Give me a T – R – U – M – P/What’s that spell? Dickhead!”
“Bullet for 45 (Straight from a .45)” is more rhythmic. It begins with a metallic intro and then blasts into a high-speed hardcore punk style. Mike IX Williams shouts out threats to President Trump, referring to him as the 45th president.
Williams spoke with Decibel about the new track, “‘Bullet for 45 (Straight from a .45)’ is a rallying cry to fight back against a garbage-infected, corrupted liar’s bullshit system and also a tribute to our late friend Steve Hanford aka ‘Thee Slayer Hippy. My only regret about this record is Steve didn’t live to see the final release, but I know he’d be proud of us. These songs are a timeless and much needed hardcore punk metal blast into the face of an untrusted authority.”
Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan wrote the liner notes for Crush the Machine, “A perfectly appropriate title for this 7-inch EP of jack-hammering, old-school style hardcore tunes released by Southern Lord, written and played by a rogues gallery of real deal music lifers as a condemnation of the criminal Trump administration and republican party, in the same spirit of those by-gone days when Ronald Reagan or George Bush was the crooked, self-serving president of the crumbling United States empire. Never before has there been a more obvious target, as Donald Trump and his mafia family cabinet rape the country while Rome burns. D.E.A. is Tony Avila, Ian Watts, Nick Oliveri, Mike IX, Blaine Cook, and the legendary and beloved, late producer and drummer of Poison Idea, Steve ‘Thee Slayer Hippy’ Hanford. Dying shortly before the completion of this record, it stands as a final testament to his genius, one last hot-wired blast of his epic musical brilliance.”
Late in 2019, Eyehategod had announced they had nearly completed new album, but it hasn’t yet been released. In August, Williams made a guest appearance on Ho99o9’s latest mixtape and contributed to a 100-musician cover of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” as a fundraiser for Old Dog Haven.
Poison Idea broke up in 2017 after 37 years and The Accüsed haven’t released studio album since 2009’s The Curse of Martha Splatterhead. Nick Oliveri had last showed up on his Dwarves album Take Back the Night in 2018, and had released three N.O. Hits compilations in 2017.
Photo credit: Raymond Flotat
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