Zen Guerilla
Eight years ago, in the belly of a Mill Creek trailer park, located in the swamp flats of Newark, Delaware, a retired DuPont plastics pioneer creates an astro-robot. After suffering mechanical damage through melecular subfusion, the robot becomes zombie-like, demolishing schools, terrorizing towns, feasting on teenagers and creating neverending havoc! Reversing the powers of nature via atomic energy, the creator assembles four nuclear-powered rocketmen to battle the warped creature. Fueled on frequency and R&B, the operation known as ZEN GUERRILLA is born. A fusion of blues, rock, and gospel, ZEN GUERRILLA's musical style comes as naturally to them as licking gravy. Their sound is as genuine and as pure as Al Green's sweat. It screams, it moans, it shakes, and it moves. It don't take a midget with a calculator to figure it out: "Rock and Roll ain't no riddle man; to me it makes good, good sense." ZEN GUERRILLA's hopscotch has been a long one. After shufflin' around their home state of Delaware and establishing themselves as one of the finest rock-n-soul outfits on the Delmarva Peninsula, they nested for a short time in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, before heading west to San Francisco. While on the East Coast, they put out a collection of singles, their first full-length, and two EPs on their own label, Insect. By the time they got to the City by the Bay in 1995 and met up with local punk rocker Jello Biafra, he was shivering with a fever to put out some "hardcore Motown." Looking for a cure, Alternative Tentacles subsequently re-released the "Invisible Liftee Pad", and "Gap-Tooth Clown" EPs (collected on one disc), as well as their 1998 album, "Positronic Raygun". As ZEN GUERRILLA's ceaseless touring schedule continued, several earth-shattering shows in Seattle landed them a deal with Sub Pop and an introduction to producer/engineer Jack Endino, with whom they chose to record their next full-length. Trance States in Tongues contains twelve tracks that will make you throw your hands up in the air and wag your tongue at the devil. It's a weighty testament to the power that ZEN GUERRILLA display both in the studio and on stage, where they exude tremendous personal magnetism and rock with the unconscious agility of possessed witch doctors. Their voodoo is music and their mojo is the ability to give back to the people the raw power of performance. Both the sickness and the cure, ZEN GUERRILLA know what's good for your soul.