Deny The Cross - Alpha Ghoul LP

DENY THE CROSS - (USA) Alpha Ghoul continues its decent into casual skull crushing. And the thing you’ll learn quickly is that Deny the Cross are here to destroy. There’s little room for recovery, though if you’re going to find any it’ll be in “Gutter Kiss”, one of the longer songs (less than 90 seconds), and even then it’s blasting by the end. The album does play the strongest to the punk side though. Songs like the very grind-y “The Prayer Position” will argue with this point, but it remains.

Where I found myself most surprised though was in the drum and bass work. Dave Witte (Municipal Waste, Discordance Axis) surprisingly hasn’t drummed for Lack of Interest but if he had to he could fucking pull it off. But it’s Ramon Salcido (Agents of Satan, Plutocracy) that really blew me away. Despite the mix not favouring his instrument enough, his playing is stellar and the glue that holds everything together. But that’s not to say that the guitar assault of Dan Lactose (Spazz) or the strongly Kevin Sharpe performance of Carlos Ramierz (Black Army Jacket) holds the album back in anyway. The band has a sense of humor on the powerviolence scene and its history. For now, Deny The Cross is friggin' bestial, and one of the alphas amongst the powerviolence crowd.