BULLETIN #1 02/09/24 NAILS: EVERY BRIDGE BURNING

Nails new album gets a suitably quick and dirty listen.

NAILS: EVERY BRIDGE BURNING

NUCLEAR BLAST

RELEASED: 30/08/24

It’s been eight years since Nails have inflicted a full length LP on the world.

It should be noted here that “Full Length” is an odd term for 10 tracks across 18 minutes, but let’s go with it…

The bands’ immaculate 2010 debut, Unsilent Death (a positively proggy 23 minutes long, fact fans), saw Nails spring from anonymity onto the playlist of crusty d-beat metallic hardcore fans everywhere. It’s quite justifiably hailed as a classic of the genre(s), for its in-your-face grind, underpinned by hooky riffage, lightning fast drums and heavy as fuck breakdowns.

For each successive release, Nails have become very slightly more metallic in their delivery; 2013’s Abandon All Life (18 mins, FF) introduced a bit more double bass death metal drummage, and more frequent doom-influenced passages to the song structures. All aspects of the songwriting I applaud.

2016’s You Will Never Be One Of Us (22 mins) saw a fuller transition to grindy metal with drum rolls aplenty, as well as changes in rhythm and - shock - the occasional guitar solo. While the band retained their impact, it felt to me like they’d strayed a bit too far into generic grind. They lost a little bit of what made them special.

Eight years on and a completely new lineup is backing Todd Jones for Every Bridge Burning, and it feels like they’ve lost a little bit of their metal edge and reverted back abit to their grinding hardcore selves, barring the odd hammer-on riff.

It’s further down the metal spectrum from their punching debut, but the balance feels pretty good. The songs are punishing as hell, with stand out tracks Every Bridge Burning, the brilliantly titled Lacking The Ability To Process Empathy, which brings in a tiny bit of Terror-style chugging (Todd has history there, and it shows), and the lumpy I Can’t Turn It Off.

The album ends on the epic and comparatively sluggish No More Rivers To Cross, which rolls at a more normal pace, as Todd barks what has to be the most identifiable couplet of 2024: “All I want is to be left alone, pay my bills and die in my home” before we squeal like a lo-fi Slayer, breathlessly to the end of the song and album.

It’s a triumphantly mid-paced climax. My favourite track of the LP.

The 18 minute runtime is perfect. We require no more and we need no less. Nails are one of the most intense bands you can listen to - and I genuinely believe that a typical 35-40 minute long LP would be too much. They’d lose their impact.

Nails are exhausting in the very best way.

Bloody marvelous.