originally published: 07/06/2025

New Jersey's high priests of swamp rock, Reese Van Riper, return with The American Dream, a five-song fever dream that drags the myth of Americana through a backwoods dive bar and leaves it bleeding on the floor. The new EP is a tongue-in-cheek, gut-punching journey through Middle America's darkest corners — equal parts patriotic nightmare and protest hymn. Appropriately, the EP was released on July 4th.

With tracks like “The American Dream” channeling Every Time I Die through denim and paranoia, and “Alcohol and Women” playing like Waylon Jennings wrestling with his worst regrets, Van Riper delivers anthems for the overmedicated and underpaid.

At the core of the EP lies “Black and Blue,” a slow-burning eulogy for the forgotten, walking the line between Southern Gothic and protest song. “Forever” hits like RL Burnside in solitary confinement, buzzing with gritty blues and Alice In Chains like existential dread, while “Calm Before the Storm (Are They Preparing Us for the End)” closes the record with acoustic apocalyptic grace, like Neil Young doomscrolling through his last days. This is not nostalgia or revivalism — it’s outlaw Americana with fuzzed-out edges and fire in its belly, built for a generation crushed by overdoses and overdue bills.

The American Dream follows up on Van Riper’s epic magnum opus the 30-song trilogy Sinners, Saints & Psychopaths — a wild, genre-defying ride that’s earned them the title of New Jersey’s most prolific songwriters. Since signing with Mint 400 Records in 2019, Reese Van Riper has released 65 songs across seven records. Van Riper sculpts hauntingly vivid sonic landscapes with gritty vocals and dark theatricality that continues to blur the lines between the sacred and the profane — proving once again that this isn’t just music. It’s mythology, reimagined.

Mint 400 Records is a label based in New Jersey that was founded by Neil Sabatino in 2007. It has grown to house a roster of close to 150 artists and over 600 releases including their instrumental and jazz sub-label Raining Music and their newest sub-label Bad Catt Records.

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