Photo Credit: Hristo Shindov
Borne with the sheer volume of powerviolence and the technical groove of death metal, NAILS have quickly evolved from its original breakneck terror-speed to a calculated brute force that doesn’t know how, nor cares, to let up. Rooted in the slow, punishing slams of early hardcore, Todd Jones and the band don’t worry about always staying fast or “pure” in any particular genre – they have their own way of doing things. And while any other band could crumble under the silent pressure of an eight-year hiatus, NAILS feel both comfortable in their skin and confident in their ability to unfreeze time like they never went away.
Every Bridge Burning, their latest Nuclear Blast Records release, picks up right where the band left off. Only this time, everyone but Jones has been replaced; menacingly alluding to the album’s title, but thankfully not to its detriment as an end product – the more things change, the more they stay the same. In typical NAILS fashion, this album crams 10 ferocious tracks into an under 18-minute runtime – a testament to the band’s innate ability to trim the compositional fat from their sonic onslaught, skilfully alternating between crushing grooves and breakneck blasts.
Opener Imposing Will sets the tone with its metallic punch ripping through the dense Kurt Ballou mix, offering snappy but intricate guitar-work for any discerning audiences to pick up along the way. Punishment Map introduces stop-start stabs of grindcore-influenced blast beats paired with barked hooks that segue seamlessly to the title track – an early highlight in the dynamic nuances that make this whole album tick, with its cut-throat wall of sound transitioning to the now-signature NAILS beatdown coda. Four minutes in and three tracks down, NAILS have stamped their authority as a no-nonsense juggernaut, and the worst is yet to come.
Despite Jones’ insistence, however, on unleashing music that “makes people uncomfortable,” the band’s arguably strongest tracks are often laced with subtle pop-like hooks and an overall anthemic energy. As such, Give Me the Painkiller proves to be a career-defining moment in the NAILS cannon; amalgamating Motörhead-inspired guitar runs from Jones and Shelby Lermo with a Slayer-infused backbone held together by fellow newcomers Carlos Cruz and Andrew Solis, respectively. Centre-piece Lacking the Ability to Process Empathy, then, provides the perfect counteract with its hardcore-laden ethos pulsating through deeply dissociating themes: “In the gloom of envy/Friends turn to enemies/You fail yourself.”
In the years leading to NAILS’ return, Jones was heavily criticised by the underground community for being a “scene bully” – a sentiment that has rubbed off on him evidently, with nearly every track on this album seething with psychopathic rage and burning revenge towards anyone who wronged him. Be it the claustrophobic wailer Trapped or the misanthropic rallies of Made Up in Your Mind and Dehumanized, Jones’ venomous growls and tortured screams drip with contempt for an unforgiving world. On the penultimate I Can’t Turn it Off, Jones seems equally content with, as he is unapologetic for, his perceived persona: “I did what I did/It is what it is.” Sludgy closer No More Rivers to Cross dares to stretch beyond the three-minute mark, leading the album’s burning aggression into a sinister dirge of Grief-influenced pick attacks and temporal resolutions.
NAILS fall into this strange category of a thriving entity that exists not within an ecosystem, but in spite of it – although albums like their 2010 debut Unsilent Death, and its 2013 follow-up Abandon All Life became modern benchmarks for full-throttle powerviolence, Jones and co. have never been interested in singing for other people’s praise – figuratively and literally. At the same time, Every Bridge Burning sounds as quintessentially NAILS as it comes – only this time, where it may lack in depth, it earns back in ferocity and boldness which is an odd thing to say about a band that doesn’t know how, nor cares, to compromise. This shift is completely deliberate and self-imposed, unveiling a more structured and thus dangerous band than ever before. As Jones has reiterated in various promotional interviews for the album, NAILS were never “dead”- and it shows.
8/10
Standout Tracks: Punishment Map, Give Me the Painkiller, I Can’t Turn it Off
For Fans Of: Converge, Full of Hell, All Pigs Must Die
Written by: Dimitris Vasileias
