know its only March, but I’m going to go ahead and say this is the heaviest album of 2010. Southern California’s Nails combines the sludge of d-beat hardcore with speed and feracity of powerviolence, topped with some doom influenced passages and played by buzzing guitars that sound as if their amps will explode any second from too much distortion. This all comes to surprise to me since the first thing I heard about Nails was that they were some kind of hardcore supergroup featuring ex-members of Carry On and Betrayed. Those two bands are pretty much the antithesis of Nails. While the band members’ work in their earlier bands were partly responsible for neo youth crew movement of the last decade, Nails will probably tear any remnant of that scene to shreds.
Unsilent Death is the newest offering from Six feet Under Records, and ts everything great about the darkest side of hardcore punk in roughly 14 minutes. Nails go through a variety of influences in this short time that can be heard pretty clearly, ranging from the early pioneers of Discharge and Seige, to more modern day genre leaders like Mind Eraser. Nails can go from a Tragedy-esque gallop, to a blast beat, to a fairly metallic breakdown in the matter of a few seconds. Its everywhere, but its all done with a viciousness thats all their own.
Everyone knows if you want a record that purposely sounds like it was furiously played into a 4 track recorder in Greg Ginn’s basement, you go to Kurt Ballou’s God City Studios. That’s exactly what Nails got. The recording is raw and noisy. Just like it should be. Guitars are constantly feeding back. The Vocals are distorted and almost unintelligible. It’s perfection.
So I know we got another 9 months, but I’m starting to doubt anything else coming out this year as gritty and unpolished as this.
P.S. I chuckle at the fact that The National is the next band that comes up on my itunes after I listen to this.
