Nails – Abandon All Life

By Andrew Bansal

California-based hardcore punk/extreme metal band Nails released their new album ‘Abandon All Life’ yesterday via Southern Lord Records. If their 2010 full-length release ‘Unsilent Death’ was anything to go by, this new album promised to deliver the goods, and that coupled with my experiences of seeing the band perform live on a few occasions, my expectations from this were quite high. But when a band is as unabashed, as fearless, and as expressive as this Todd Jones-led quartet, there is not even a possibility of failing to live up to expectations. Once again, Nails have given it their all, and the result is this vicious 17-minute wall of heavy music called Abandon All Life.

In terms of the musical approach, they’ve stuck to their guns, and there’s nothing different there in comparison to Unsilent Death. They’ve given us exactly what anyone familiar with the band would have expected from them. If anything, it’s even deadlier than its predecessor. The band’s thunderous distortion is felt from the opening track ‘In Exodus’ right till the final moments of the last track ‘Suum Cuique’. With the exception of that final track and ‘Wide Open Wound’, all other eight songs are less than 2 minutes in duration, five of them being under a minute. There’s a certain degree of skill involved in this ‘to-the-point’ approach of musicianship, and to be able to express oneself in such short time spans is commendable in itself. Having said that, a lot of bands fail in an attempt to do so. Nails isn’t one of them, and this assessment is vindicated by the level of respect and admiration the band garners in the American underground.

Even though the tracks played at breakneck tempo are great and get the adrenaline pumping, personally I prefer the slow, draining ones like the aforementioned Wide Open Wound and Suum Cuique. The slowness allows for the brutality in the music to resonate and sink in that much more. I must mention Taylor Young’s efforts on drums because he carries the rhythm brilliantly throughout the varying tempo in the album. Of course, Todd Jones kills on vocals and guitar, and Saba on the other guitar along with John Gianelli on bass keep things ominously heavy throughout.

Nails have always put on fantastic live shows, and with the addition of these new songs in the set, they will most certainly continue to do so. For fans of hardcore punk and extreme metal, buying this album should be a no-brainer, really. ‘Abandon All Life’ is 17 minutes of sheer madness!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHSkjKB_MwQ

Rating: 9.5/10

Release Date: March 19th 2013

Record Label: Southern Lord

Track Listing:
1. In Exodus
2. Tyrant
3. Absolute Control
4. God’s Cold Hands
5. Wide Open Wound
6. Abandon All Life
7. No Surrender
8. Pariah
9. Cry Wolf
10. Suum Cuique

Links:
nailsmerch.com
facebook.com/nailsoxnard

twitter.com/nailsoxnard

NAILS Spring Tour w/ Xibalba, Early Graves:
4/26/2013 The Cobra Lounge – Chicago, IL @ The Rumble
4/27/2013 Now That’s Class – Cleveland, OH
4/28/2013 The Funeral Home – Buffalo, NY
4/29/2013 Sneaky Dea’s – Toronto, ON
4/30/2013 Il Motore – Montreal, QC
5/01/2013 Bogies – Albany, NY
5/02/2013 Great Scott – Boston, MA
5/03/2013 St Vitus – Brooklyn, NY
5/04/2013 O’Reillys – Philadelphia, PA

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