Gone Is Gone - Echolocation review: 'they set a mood of blank despair as effectively as Alice in Chains'

Gone Is Gone are a Los Angeles-based collaboration between Mastodon leader Troy Sanders and less-influential members of At the Drive In and Queens of the Stone Age.

Together they are the heavy sound of minor metal royalty gathering together to board a riff-laden juggernaut that’s deliciously deep and dark on the funereal-paced Sentient but much stodgier on the clunking Pawns.

The near-acoustic twang of Resolve breaks the mood and offers a splash of colour amid the gloom, alongside real grit in Slow Awakening.

There’s plenty of Nine Inch Nails-style layering and they can set a mood of blank despair as effectively as Alice in Chains.

There’s nothing here that’s genre-changing, and Echolocation grinds where it should sparkle, but its aim is mostly true.

(Rise/Black Dune)