Reviewed:
- Unsilent Death (2010)
- Abandon All Life (2013)
- You Will Never Be One of Us (2016)
UNSILENT DEATH 2010 (Southern Lord)
- Standouts: Everything.
Powerviolence? What the fuck is that? Yet another subgenre of death metal...or hardcore...or grindcore...apparently. I dunno, this album sounds like grindcore more than anything, to me at least. Maybe it has a more of an emphasis on hardcore than other grindcore bands, but I dunno. Fuck it, throw death metal, grindcore, beatdown hardcore, d-beat and sludge into a blender, and I guess that's powerviolence. Essentially, Nails are one of the angriest, most intense bands I've heard in a while. Not necessarily the heaviest, but this is brutality in the sense of aggression and delivery.
Nails are a band I'd recommend to both hardcore dudes and metalheads, though metal guys and gals will have to bear in mind that what you're getting with Unsilent Death (and the rest of the band's discography for that matter) is quality over quantity. We're talking just under 14 minutes of music here, so it definitely sits in the hardcore punk school of LP's in this sense. But like I said, it's about quality, not quantity. And the music here is just so in-your-face and crushing that it really doesn't need to last 40 minutes. It has blast beats and skull-crushing riffs all over the 10 tracks, most of which clock at under a minute long, and the music rarely stops to catch it's own breath. Sure, you get some mid-tempo riffs from time to time (the lengthy title song for example...when I say 'lengthy', I mean 2 minutes and 41 seconds and 'Depths', which is over 3 minutes), but really this is just music to either mosh or lift weights to. Todd Jones' vocals sit more in the hardcore department too, but are a bit more throaty and gutteral than the average beatdown hardcore band...for now.
I can't listen to individual tracks from Unsilent Death - I just play the whole thing in one go every time. True, it's one-dimensional, but it's a perfect example of sheer rage in music form; rage done correctly. Plus, the extra-loud production job just makes it that much better. If I had to pick holes, I'd say that this isn't an album I can listen to all the time simply because I don't want to hear aggression 24/7, but when I do, this is one of my go-to record.
Adam's rating: 9/10 when I'm in the right mood, otherwise 8.5/10 all-round.
ABANDON ALL LIFE 2013 (Southern Lord)
- Standouts: All, but especially 'Wide Open Wound'
Musically Abandon All Life - the follow-up to Unsilent Death - isn't massively different to what you heard on the predecessor, but the production is arguably superior and louder whilst still retaining that dirty, grimy feel of the debut. See, this band are crazy enough to sound as brutal as their genre gets, but they aren't ridiculously tight or proficient musicians like the whole tech-death metal scene is. Most of the tracks, like 'In Exodus', 'Tyrant', 'Absolute Control' and 'No Surrender' etc., are the relentless, full-on assault of the senses as you'd expect, and kind of blend into one, but 'Wide Open Wound' is one of the dirtiest, sludgiest and heaviest things I've heard in a long time, and actually has some really memorable riffage. Same goes for the closing 5 minute 'Suum Cuique' (whatever that means). The most noticeable difference between this and Unsilent Death however, are the vocals. Jones' vocals sat more within the beatdown hardcore realm in terms of vocals, previously. This time he has this higher-pitched, vocal-chord straining approach, and it works just as well - though I still prefer the vocals on the first record. Guess it's just a personal preference, but the vocal performance here still doesn't put me off listening to Abandon All Life. All in all this record continues the band's brand of powerviolence just fine. It's just as good as before - and they were even kind enough to make the whole thing last a whole 17 minutes this time (wow!) - even if I do still slightly prefer the debut. Don't expect to clearly remember these songs for the first few listens though, as it's the intensity that sticks with you - and that's whats important with Nails.
Adam's rating: 8.5/10
YOU WILL NEVER BE ONE US 2016 (Nuclear Blast)
- Standouts: All except 'They Come Crawling Back', maybe.
It's only been recently, i.e. in the past year or so that I've actually started listening to Nails. I wasn't even aware of them until You Will Never Be One of Us came out. I read numerous good, psyched-up reviews of this album and finally picked it up after seeing Nails at Damnation Festival in Leeds last year. I could barely see 'em despite being 6'2" (not bragging) - the hall was just absolutely jam-packed with people to the point where you could barely move. The air in the room was disgustingly sweaty, but their performance was awesome, so I didn't care. But yeah, I caught 'em live, I bought this album, then I quickly bought the others afterward. So it's safe to assume I like it then, right? Right.
Until you've actually listened to the band's three records numerous times, you probably won't be able to differentiate them all that much, initially. This is the same raging, blast-beat pounding, d-beat pumping, anger-inducing, crushing kick in the balls that you'd expect from this band, but it does still have some subtle differences to the last two albums. It's nearly 22 minutes in length, so it's the longest yet, and the whole thing to me feels more like a grindcore album than it does anything else this time (while still sounding like Nails). I think it's the fact that the vocal approach has changed for a third time, being a little less screechy and unhinged than what you heard on Abandon All Life, and sounding more like a throatier, more focused version instead. The songs are, overall, more memorable too - the chorus to the title song is (dare I say it), kinda catchy! The same goes for the mid-tempo 'Violence Is Forever'. There's also this really cool, infectious bass-break down in 'Friend to All'. The album ends on the doomy, sludgy, almost black metal-inspired 'They Come Crawling Back' (well, the intro sounds a bit black metal to me at least), and it's more than 8 minutes long, which means more than a third of the album's length is this song entirely. While I do like this track for sure, I don't think it needs to be 8 minutes long. I don't think Nails are a band that needs to write songs more than 5 minutes long, frankly, especially if they're gonna keep writing insane shit like this (which I assume they will keep doing forever). It's not like they have any real structured guitar solos or melodies, it's either just in-your-face brutality or the occasional dirty, sludgy number thrown in among the rest of the album.
Having said these things, the album's still great. Weirdly I actually liked this one the most of the three when I first started listening to the band, and now it's gone to the bottom. Not too sure why. Maybe it's that closing track? The only thing that sort of irritates me about Nails is the fact that since 2010 they've made three records - fair enough you say, but not really when you consider that in total we've had exactly 52 minutes and 9 seconds of recorded music spanning those three albums. That's less than an hour of compositions, and it's now 2018! Their defense is that they make albums that are quality over quantity (which I do agree with in terms of the records themselves), but do they really need to take three years to release each album? When Lemmy was still alive, he was releasing new Motorhead albums every two years (roughly), same goes for bands like Megadeth (even if MegaDave's songwriting is hit and miss), Cannibal Corpse, Annihilator and Saxon. Obviously this rant has no effect on the quality of You Will Never Be One of Us, but still...eventually I think the hype for Nails will die off if they continue in this direction...
Adam's rating: 8.2/10
