A post punk supergroup featuring former members of Amebix? Well, it’s already been done of course, in the form of the ill-fated Tau Cross, but here we are again with False Fed, who’ve created a raw mix of Joy Division and Killing Joke on new album Let Them Eat Fake – and very nice it is too.

FF don’t quite carry the foreboding immensity about them that the ‘Cross managed to create, but it’s hard to deny finely-wrought pieces like Dreadful Necessities, wherein the band weave all those eighties threads into a devastating, cohesive whole with the sort of panache not usually displayed by trenchcoated misanthropes.

Perhaps the big surprise here – at least as my old ears are concerned, is the performance of vocalist Jeff Janiak. Janiak, you’ll remember, filled in on vocals in the latter days of legendary names Discharge and Broken Bones; And whilst his commitment was never in doubt I never felt he did either role much justice. Here, he sounds to the manner born, giving a gutbusting performance that is as convincing as it is appealing. He even manages to bark out the words ‘mass debate’ without descending into Pugwash-styled titters, but whether he’s intoning a tortured, Curtisesque croon or going for broke with some throatruining overkill he sounds completely in his element on every track here.

Roy Mayorga and bassist JP Parsons keep the bottom end bubbling away nicely – Parsons comes up with some ripping basswork throughout – whilst Stig C Miller (like Mayorga, an Amebix alumnus) keeps the six string end up with simple but effective riffs. The way he locks in with Parsons on best track The Tyrant Dies – which coincidentally, probably, is the track that reminds me most of Tavistock’s finest – is especially enjoyable.

Good stuff, then, with the only real quibble being that at seven tracks you’re left wanting more from Let Them Eat Fake – let’s hope the band rectifies that situation soon!

Let Them Eat Fake releases on October 13th.