Zig Zags - Deadbeat at Dawn LP

(Description from RidingEasy) Zig Zags have been an L.A. institution for over a decade, never veering from their hard-riffin punk/metal mission statement. They’ve gigged all over the globe with underground luminaries such Mike Watt, Neurosis, Pig Destroyer, Oh Sees and Feral Ohms and recorded collaborations with icons like Iggy Pop. Zig Zags’ founding member, guitarist/singer Jed Maheu explains of the band’s core inspiration, “Zig Zags is metal and punk music written for my 13-year old self. If I wanted us to sound like something else, I would just do a different band.” This unyielding dedication to pure, driving rock n’ roll goes back to 2010, when Maheu, who was reared on both hardcore and ‘80s thrash, started writing tracks inspired by his obsession with both genres. The band’s first slab of vinyl, the appropriately named “Monster Wizard” 45 came out soon after Tubesteak Tuesday Records. This was quickly followed by more singles on Mexican Summer and Light in the Attic, the latter teaming Zig Zags up with none other than lggy Pop to blow out a Betty Davis cover. Their first self-titled LP dropped in 2012 on In the Red Records, produced by Ty Segall, who coaxed out their lean, mean, and lo-fi metalloid attack. The Zig Zags’ second full platter, Running Out of Red was released on the Castle Face imprint in 2016, and since 2019 they’ve been with Riding Easy records, who unleashed They’ll Never Take Us Alive, featuring their anthem of a single, “Punk Fucking Metal.” By this time, Maheu had enlisted  Sean Hoffman on bass and Jeff Murray, (formerly of The Shrine) on drums, to release a hard and heavy rework of 10 years worth of Zig Zag’s classics, entitled, Strange Masters Vol. 1, in 2024. Now the power trio is set to release their fifth incendiary full-length LP, Deadbeat at Dawn, named in honor of the beloved B-movie, a no-budget action revenge flick set in the mean streets of suburban Ohio. Cult cinema is an enduring Zig Zags inspiration, with the band frequently calling out exploitation films in their lyrics, odes to teen-delinquent classics like “Over the Edge” and dystopian sci-fi such as, “Terminator” and “Total Recall”. The new album sticks to this obsession with the cultural underground, riffing on everything from demonic minions to apocalyptic visions and alien attacks. The opening track “‘Not of This World’ is described by Maheu as, “a fighting-back-against-the-aliens song”. The propulsive heavy jammer “At War With Hell” fights the devils on their own satanic turf. The thrash power anthem, “Take Me To Your Leader’, is – as Maheu explains,“about how we’re always talking about the environment and going to Mars, then some aliens show up here and say, ‘Yo, your planet is way better than where we came from, so we’re gonna fuck you up and take it!’” This new album is undeniably Zig Zags’ at their most epic and enormous in both the performance and the production. “We definitely wanted a bigger overall sound with heavier guitars,” Maheu explains of the new record, “still very 80’s, but clearer. Our influences were Metallica’s, Garage Days as Judas Priest…really heavy but not overly distorted.” The result is the most focused, intense, and catchy Zig Zags album yet, with the timing perfect for their distinctly melodic and maniacal call to arms. Finalizing recording and mixing just as the catastrophic fires hit their hometown in L.A., Deadbeat at Dawn is the perfect soundtrack for a city rising up from the ashes of destruction.  “I feel lucky that we got to put out this record when we did,” Maheu said, “It’s heavy and gnarly and kind of fucked up, but it’s also a lot of fun – which is how we feel about Los Angeles.”