As anyone familiar with the thin alt-rock gruel served up by Mastodon/At the Drive-In/Queens of the Stone Age team-up Gone is Gone will attest, the rock supergroup is often something that seems a better idea in theory than in practice. Which makes the self-titled debut from Dead Cross a rare and impressive exception. It reunites Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo with Faith No More wild man Mike Patton (the two previously appeared together in oddball metal outfit Fantômas) for a ferocious burst of inventive, hardcore punk that never stays still long enough to get predictable. Retox guitarist Mike Crain’s squalling, shreddy riffs nod smartly both to 80s Bay Area punk and the more contemporary mathcore of the Dillinger Escape Plan and Botch, while Patton, sounding more energised than he has in years, puts his elasticated vocals to good use, barking, yelping and cooing his way through the sludgy Gag Reflex, the pulverising crust punk of Idiopathic and even a surprising cover of Bauhaus’s post-punk classic Bela Lugosi’s Dead. The result is an album that sounds as if it was a blast to make and one that’s immensely enjoyable to listen to.
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