ALBUM REVIEW: Dead Cross - "Dead Cross"

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 04/08/2017

Label: Ipecac Recordings |

Three One G

While Dead Cross don’t quite deliver the all-out face-melting insanity you may expect from their constituent parts, this debut is still an exhilarating burst of queasy punk rock mayhem that reminds most young pretenders who’s in charge.

“Dead Cross” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Seizure and Desist
2. Idiopathic
3. Obedience School
4. Shillelagh
5. Bela Lugosi’s Dead
6. Divine Filth
7. Grave Slave
8. The Future Has Been Cancelled
9. Gag Reflex
10. Church of the Motherfuckers

The Review:

It’s impossible not to get excited about the talent gathered to form Dead Cross. Any new project from Mike Patton comes with high expectations, but throw in the mighty drum skills of Dave Lombardo, The Locust’s Justin Pearson on bass and Festival Of Dead Deer’s Michael Crain unleashing six-string carnage and anticipation goes through the roof.

What’s most apparent on the band’s debut LP is that they sound like they are having a total blast. Dead Cross’ blend of no-nonsense hardcore punk, restless metal and goth-tinged weirdness may be slightly more straightforward than the band member’s career peaks but it packs a real punch.

The highlights of this album come when Dead Cross switch between breathless intensity and slower sections within the space of a track. “Idiopathic” and “Obedience School” are sub-three minute epics that find the band ripping through furious riffs and sections of reverb-assisted grandeur. This backdrop of ever-changing sounds and moods give Patton freedom to unleash his full arsenal of vocal talents from smooth crooning to incomprehensible gurgles and screams. Most disturbing is his mumbled utterances of “Tampax” over the bizarre locked groove that ends “Gag Reflex”.

“Shillelagh” is the closest Dead Cross get to Faith No More territory with a strong “King For A Day...”feel to its ever-shifting punk rock churn. The second half of the album finds the band channelling the spirit of Pearsonand Crain’s 31G Recordspast, particularly the off-kilter rock’n’roll discord of “The Future Has Been Cancelled”. The only slight misfire here is their cover of Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. They deliver a spirited version of the track but its presence in the middle of the LP is jarring and disrupts its breakneck flow.

While Dead Cross don’t quite deliver the all-out face-melting insanity you may expect from their constituent parts, this debut is still an exhilarating burst of queasy punk rock mayhem that reminds most young pretenders who’s in charge.

“Dead Cross”is available here

Band info: facebook || bandcamp