(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Zeke, a hardcore band from Seattle active since 1990, released a series of astounding singles, beginning with West Seattle Acid Party (IFA) and Holley 750 (IFA), as well as two exhilarating albums such as Super Sound Racer (IFA, 1995 - Scooch Pooch, 1996) and especially Flat Tracker (Scooch Pooch, 1996), from which the singles Chiva Knieval and Dilaudit were taken. Pinstripping The Dutchman's Coffin (Wreckingball), recorded before those albums, would only be released years later.
Their style is unusually restrained (instrumentally speaking) for this genre of music. Not only do the guitars of Marky Felchtone and Sonny (Abe Zanuel) Riggs hit almost every chord correctly, but the rhythm section of Mark Pierce and Donny Paycheck propels the music with calmness and precision despite the beastly vehemence of Felchtone's vocals.
Kicked In The Teeth (Epitaph, 1998) is still an album of supersonic punk-rock, but this time the songs are truly microscopic missiles (from thirty to sixty seconds long), and, more importantly, they are almost always genuinely infectious and even catchy. The malicious sneer of God Of GSXR and Rodney softens with Telepath Boy into a melodicism that is more goofy than rebellious, as if the Ramones were being played at double speed. If the voodoobilly of Twisted deliberately slows down the massacre (with grotesque swagger), the vertiginous slam-dance of Kicked In The Teeth, their anthem and manifesto, launches their self-destructive ritual into orbit. Musically speaking, Fuck All Night is even an improvement over Kicked: the same carefree pantomime, but with a more compelling chorus. Revolution resumes grinding out insults against society, followed closely by the unrestrained "oi" of Lawson and the venomous satire of Goggle Boy. The group graduates as champions of rock and roll in the lengthy (two minutes!) Shoot It Out Loud, this time in the tradition of AC/DC.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Dirty Sanchez (Epitaph, 2000) is an album that seems to come from
another time, if not from another galaxy: it squeezes 16 songs in 21 minutes.
Standouts this time around are the anthemic
Let's Get Drugs and a couple of supersonic rants
(Punk Rock Records, 1999). The band subtly transcends the
genre when it imports
the Sex Pistols' melodramatic angst (Now You Die),
an MC5-style carpet bombing (Out Of Love),
and a Cramps-ian voodoobilly (Liar).
Long live rock and roll.
Death Alley (Aces & Eights, 2001)
is fundamentally the same album as Dirty Sanchez. The titles are
different, some of the hooks are different, but the idea is identical.
Mountain Man is the only major addition to the canon.
Live And Uncensored (Dead Teenager, 2003) is a compilation of live
and rare tracks.
The sound became even more derivative on
Til The Livin' End (Relapse, 2004), a burst of hysterical hard-rock
on top of mediocre tunes.
