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Having been a member of a cool band isn’t always a guarantee that someone can make good music outside of that band. Heck, even the greats, like, say, Mick Jagger, have faltered when set loose on their own. So it’s not a shock, exactly, when a former member of Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age fails to do much with his own band. But the mess Nick Oliveri creates playing with his band Mondo Generator is (to steal and mangle a phrase from the year 2003) shocking and awful.

The music on Dead Planet is a raw and heavy brand of punk/metal that manages to regress far past the polished current state of that art as represented by the Blink-182’s and Green Days of the world. Even as full of energy as Dead Planet, is, it somehow manages to simultaneously annoy even more than the former, without exhibiting any of the soul of the latter.

A large part of the problem lies with Oliveri’s harsh and aggressive hardcore vocals. He’s got a love it or hate it style, and you can count me among those who loathe Oliveri’s screeching. I get that he might be angry, I get that he isn’t aiming to create ‘nice’ music, but the way he goes about his business, it’s tough to get anything out of Mondo Generator except a headache.

In a way, it’s too bad, because on occasion, the band (Oliveri plays bass) manages to scratch together interesting sonic structures, taking both from the stoner rock of Oliveri’s Kyuss origins and the wide-ranging influences taken from the QoTSA days. But those moments are too rare, and all too often overshadowed, leaving this Dead Planet, a barren landscape for those seeking quality entertainment.