Clayton Noone is responsible for a steady stream of pulverizing guitar destruction, both alone and in the company of others. Under a number of guises and in a number of groups ? CJA, Wolfskull, Futurians, Claypipe and Armpit are the ones that I can remember off the top of my head ? Noone has launched grievous beams of shiver-inducing sludge from his New Zealand base of operations. Well it is easy to lump Noone in with the other drone-damaged NZ miscreants, doing such a thing would ignore the intimate subtlety that he sometimes allows to peer through in his music.

?Taken Off a Cross? finds Noone adopting his CJA mask and stripping most of the murk from his sound. Comprised mostly of barely there guitar strums and ghostly wordless vocals, this cassette is a collage of material left off of the monumental ?Ironclad? album. The theme here is hopelessness, melancholy, and pointlessness. The artwork pokes fun at Christianity, whose followers hope for an approaching salvation via the second coming of a sacrificial of a god-man. ?Taken Off a Cross? spits on hope and wallows in emptiness with each emaciated strum and every hollow note. Is it depressing? Of course! Do we love it? Undoubtedly! 7/10 -- Bryon Hayes (26 February, 2008)