Tim Lambesis ruined the ability of music reviewers to use the phrase ‘totally brutal’ with his Austrian Death Machine project but I’m going to go for it anyway and call the new CD from Nails “totally brutal”. Over the last few decades, I’ve seen some crazy mosh pits but Nails’ new disc sounds like an immediate flashpoint that will start the violence flowing.

I was only loosely familiar with Nails prior to Unsilent Death [the band’s second disc] and had made some assumptions based on guitarist/vocalist Todd James’ time in Terror. There is really no comparison between the two bands as Nails’ music sits right on the line between hardcore and grid. The disc’s ten tracks blast through in fourteen minutes and most tracks clock in at about a minute.

The disc contains two ‘longer’ songs ("Unsilent Death" and "Depths") which are given the opportunity to develop musically but even the shorter songs have a chance to spew their fury. These shorter songs don’t feel like the typical grindcore microsong as producer Kurt Ballou brings out the band’s chugging riffs, noisy leads and blast beats so that they are all individually distinguishable. Even more noticeable is that the vocals are (somewhat) understandable and the listener can hear James’ lyrical themes about railing against authority and the struggle of the human condition.

Nails just came through with Venomous Concept and here is some live footage from their stop in Albany.



Unsilent Death was originally released earlier this year on CD (Six Feet Under) and limited edition vinyl (now sold out). Southern Lord recently reissued the new disc on both CD and 180 gram black vinyl.

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Nails