In the wake of George Floyd’s death, artists have been speaking out with their support for the Black Lives Matter movement including the punk band Dead Cross. It has been two years since they have released any new music and the band decided that they wanted to speak out for the cause with a cover of the legendary punk song “Rise Above” by Black Flag.”Dead Cross came out with a cover of “Rise Above” to show solidarity with the current movement. The lyrics are very directly calling out oppressors who try to control others and the words are very powerful in saying that “We are tired of your abuse/Try to stop us, but it’s no use.” Dead Cross has shown their stance on the riots of the Black Lives Matter movement by releasing the cover of the song that clearly sends the message that you can’t let society push you down.

The cover of the song also comes with a music video, which includes an audio clip of a citizen confronting the LAPD commissioner over a zoom call where the citizen says, “Suck my dick and choke on it! I yield my time! Fuck you!” At the beginning the video along with the noted audio clip, are videos of peaceful protestors being attacked by police officers even though the protestors allegedly did nothing to explicitly provoke the officers.

The music video released by Dead Cross includes their front man Mike Patton, on guitar Michael Crain, on bass Justin Pearson and on drums Dave Lombardo.The cover follows Dead Cross’ Dave Lombardo announcement of his new project Satanic Planet with bandmate Justin Pearson.  In the video what you see is a powerful image of the band performing the song where they are trying to convey an important message that protestors should not let police brutality keep them from having their message heard.

The lyrics to the song insinuates that Dead Cross wants peaceful protestors to continue spreading their message and standing with the Black Lives Matter movement. To watch the music video and the clip of the citizen confronting the LAPD commissioner you can visit this link. Lastly, in this past January, Lombardo stated that the band has completed recording drums, bass and guitar for a new album for their fans.