BACK WITH A VENGEANCE!!!
Picking right up exactly where they left off with You Will Never Be One of Us, Nails surprise us with 17 minutes of velocity and intensity, and 17 minutes is all you need with highlights abound.
The angrier Nails get when it comes to hating society, the more you’re guaranteed to get the most vicious riffs mankind has heard. This album conjures flashes of chaos and depravity, and the band has no sympathy for your ears. You’re getting razed for the entire duration of this album and there is no egress. My first listen of this album I had my face completely ripped off and sewed back on the wrong way.
With the exception of guitarist/vocalist Todd Jones, Nails come back eight years later with a complete line-up rearrangement. Now the structuring of these songs are quite similar to previous releases. You have a barrage of relentless blast beats and D-Beat drummimg coming at you accompanied by the aggressive static guitars, but this, however, isn’t the interminable listening experience of this 17 minute sonic assault. Nails also display what groovy Powerviolence should sound like.
Let’s talk about the title track here: The first half of the song is a normal song structure of what Nails are known for, Powerviolence velocity with barking vocals, but the second half of the song, they yank the J-brake and reduce the tempo, while simultaneously grooving through the rest of the song. “Give Me The Painkiller” is my favorite off this LP and also the most surprising. Why, you may ask? Well with the the exception of this being the second longest song off the album, running at 2:44, this is also the closest Nails ever sounded like Motorhead, without similarities toward Lemmy, because let’s be honest, that would sound extremely bizarre.
Now anyone who likes a slow burner will love the next track, “Lacking The Ability To Process Empathy” With Todd Jones’ harsh, barking vocals and the entombed-esqued buzzsaw guitar tone, this one has all the fundamentals of a Black’n’Roll track. You can absolutely feel the hate and disgust that Todd is disseminating. “Trapped”, “Made Up In Your Mind” and “Dehumanized” are the next three following, and it is right back to the ultraviolet Grindcore that leaves you no room to breathe.
The penultimate track, “I Can´t Turn It Off”, is another groovier track that is inundated with thrash influences that’ll leave anyone who is a fan of Exodus with a big fat smile! Now, for the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the threatening closer that lasts for 3:14 minutes. With a run time like that on a Powerviolence album, it should come to no surprise that there aren’t any fast parts at all on here. Instead, this one is based off of slow song structuring, which easily makes this the most nefarious-sounding track off the album and great way to wrap things up.
I guess it is kinda unfair that Nails return with another album eight years later with a duration of an EP runtime, but they’ve shown that just under 20 minutes, is more then then enough time to pulverize your skull into pieces. This album may not be as intense as some of their past outputs, but what they do showcase is a fun and volatile album all the way through, which is something you really can’t say about a lot of Powerviolence bands. Welcome back Nails!!
