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DEAD CROSS
II

Ipecac Recordings (2022)
Rating: 9/10

It’s time to brace yourself once again for another sonic tour de force through the darkest depths of punk, hardcore, crossover and whatever else you find while digging around the second full-length outing from the maniacal Dead Cross.

Of course, any band which the legendary Mike Patton fronts is going to rip your face off, so with Dead Cross you’ve just gotta latch onto whatever flow you can find and go with it. However, prepare for some serious jabs to the ribs, an abundance of crashing waves to the limbs, a plethora of tortured screams to the ears, occasional drilling to the skull, epileptic fits, clanking riffage to the kneecaps, brutal bass workouts to the spine, percussion that just batters you to a pulp and eventual submission to a barrage of discordant tracks that are both brooding and jarring.

Eight listens in and I’m still marvelling at the neurotic guitar tone and yet caressed by Patton’s vocal spatter on a track such as ‘Animal Espionage’. Dead Cross is the sort of band I’d want to see headlining a festival that features the long forgotten God, the experimental Scorn, old Napalm Death and a spoken word session from Jello Biafra before making way for NoMeansNo; Dead Cross has that kind of vibe.

Justin Pearson’s bass just clanks throughout; it’s not a musical instrument, it’s an instrument of audible torture and when put alongside Dave Lombardo’s percussion it has to be the most formidable tag team in music today – dank, sinister and downright bruising.

The hyper ‘Heart Remover’ flashes towards Cryptic Slaughter and nods to my youth as a hardcore aficionado, and yet there are those doomy, lumbering segments which separate it. We expect those frantic, up-tempo fits, yet we can never grasp them when they arrive. ‘Ants And Dragons’ boasts varying shades of grey yet remains abrasive and foreboding, while ‘Christian Missile Crisis’ is a full on demonic thrash outburst barking with Slayer menace and elasticated vocal sneers, and then there’s the sonic assault of ‘Strong And Wrong’, a truly violent hardcore ode of double team vocal yaps and tormented torrents of instrumental abuse. But you can cherry pick any composition on this opus and be blown away by the mocking, cynical brutality.

‘Love Without Love’ is probably the most subtle track here and nods towards Patton’s Mr Bungle, or even Faith No More, but married to, say, Carnivore. And there’s so much more, a dark well of ideas well-stirred frantically to result in an impenetrable brew. ‘Nightclub Canary’ is volatile hardcore punk, ‘Reign Of Error’ again hints at toxic thrash, and ‘Imposter Syndrome’ scurries like Yeah Yeah Yeahs on a rollercoaster nosedive into Hell and littered with creepy narrations and brooding psychosis.

You knew what was coming but didn’t… you couldn’t really prepare for such a beating; this second release being another raw, hurried and demented offering that’s darkly humorous but built upon the rabid constructions of Mike Crain’s colossal riffs. Dead Cross is a ferocious beast under whichever guise it sporadically takes on. The big question is, are you willing to put your head in such a blender?

Neil Arnold

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