REEKS AND THE WRECKS - Knife Hits

It's a hard thing to welcome a band's debut record and write its obituary at the same time.

Yes, because Reeks And The Wrecks made only a brief appearance on the music scene, despite being a project that was already over for reasons beyond anyone's control: fate decreed that their guitarist Orion Satushek, the true mastermind behind the band, would pass away in the manner befitting an average "cursed" rock star - namely, run down by a drunk driver.

After a few months of limbo, spent wondering whether it was even worth carrying on with the work they'd started, the band decided to immortalize a couple of decades' worth of career, spent playing around their native California, during which they seem to have recorded an EP and a handful of cassettes, about as easy to track down as the Holy Grail.

It's an intriguing challenge to try to pair the dark, leaden sound of "Knife Hits" with that of any other record - fair warning: start preparing your white flag now, unless you're well versed in listening to projects built on dirty drums, a forceful bass, a searing slide guitar, surprising electronic effects (in measured doses) and a trombone that at times takes center stage, at times merges into the rhythm section.

The album opens with "Blue Ballroom": the very first seconds suggest a riff you might feel you've heard before, and you'll already be cursing the writer of this review, but it's a brief parenthesis — the aforementioned trombone enters, everything turns incredibly obsessive, the drums assault you, the guitar cuts its way through like a knife, and the track ends with thirty seconds of pure distortion, just to give you an idea of the deal you've gotten yourself into.

Next comes "Mosquito Crash Diamond Gun", a march built on South American rhythms whose gait seems a touch more conventional, followed by the initially rarefied "Maui Wow Wow", a possible soundtrack for a western starring zombies.

The jittery interlude of "Free Smoke" lasts just a moment, separating us from "Nerf", a none-too-subtly noise-driven track centered on a violently distorted guitar (Caroliner?), and from "Dunebuggy", a wonderfully original excursion into surf-rock.

If the following "Nutsack Cadillac" might push the more skeptical among you to detect a glimmer of conventionality (and it takes no small effort), get ready to be thrown off by your typical band from beyond the grave trying its hand at a waltz ("The Waltz", fittingly enough).

Yet another change of course brings us the bare, sprawling "Silverthaw", built on a repeated guitar arpeggio and barely-there percussion, just to soften the blow before the unexpected sampling games of "Stoners On Fire", which brings the album to a close.

Nothing more to add, except to urge you to get your hands on something you'll never hear mentioned again.

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30/04/2026