Dead Cross (Faith No More, Ex-Slayer, The Locust) Announce New Album, Drop Blistering First Single
In case you’re unaware, Dead Cross is the harsh-ass thrash band of Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle), Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies), Justin Pearson (The Locust), and Mike Crain (Retox), and boy howdy, are they awesome. The project sounds like speed metal made by kids who grew up on noise rock and alternative punk, trying desperately to pay homage to Exodus with brains like metropolitan subway maps (oh, so, Oozing Wound, their direct peer is Oozing Wound). In 2017, the band dropped a killer debut album; now they’ve announced its follow-up, and have dropped a ripping first track to boot.
Dead Cross’ new album will be titled — wait for it — II, and will come out October 28th on Ipecac Recordings. The record is already available for pre-order. And get this: it was produced by Ross Robinson, the nu-metal savant known for recording suck classics as Slipknot’s debut and Korn’s Life Is Peachy. Now, this may worry some fans, but that’d be foolhardy, because that guy brings a really up-front and brain-scrambling sound to this rager.
And make no mistake, “Reign of Error” is a fucking beast, son. The song kicks off with awesome momentum and wily rage, and just skips around the room beating things to pieces with a baseball bat. There’s a real sense of panic that a lot of modern thrash loses, and which makes the listener uneasy but in a fun, excitable way. Patton is as unhinged as ever, and Pearson’s riffs get their hooks in your from the get-go — but of course, the real king of the freaks here is Lombardo, who provides the track with its sense of all-elbows ultraviolence. Man, what a cool first single.
Check it out below, then scroll down for tracklisting and cover art.
Dead Cross, II:
- Love Without Love
- Animal Espionage
- Heart Reformer
- Strong and Wrong
- Ants and Dragons
- Nightclub Canary
- Christian Missile Crisis
- Reign of Error
- Imposter Syndrome
