L.A.-based musician Mike Crain may be best known for his work with spasmodic hardcore-ish outfits such as Dead Cross (where he plays alongside Mike Patton, Dave Lombardo and Justin Pearson), Retox (with Pearson again) and Cunts, but he also makes austere, noirish music under his own name. He released an eponymous EP earlier this year, and his latest solo offering is the open wound of a song "In This Skin," which Revolver is premiering right here right now. "I'm so goddamn sick/That's my story/That's all," Crain growls and groans over sparse instrumentation. The song draws on recent harrowing life experience, and it drips with acid. Listen above.
"The past few months have been fucking surreal, to put it mildly," Crain tells us. "I literally just recovered from cancer treatments, recorded the new Dead Cross album, went on tour with my band Cunts supporting the Melvins, contracted COVID-19 on said tour, lost my sense of smell for what feels like an eternity now, and spent all the time in between writing and recording a slew of solo material. This particular song is about the real social distance, which, for me, is between my physical self and my emotional self. There's a definite disconnect. I love you all and I hope you enjoy the song."
Crain wrote and recorded "In This Skin" in March amid the incipient chaos of the coronavirus pandemic. Paul Christenson handles the drums on the recording, which was mixed and mastered by Pseudo Beast. Anthony Mehlhaff snapped the photograph in the video.
Next up for Crain, new music from Cunts, as well as the aforementioned Dead Cross album. A release date for the latter, which was produced by Ross Robinson (Korn, Slipknot, Sepultura), has yet to be announced.
