NAILS – Every Bridge Burning

vote
7.5

• Band:
  NAILS
• Duration: 00:17:44
• Available from: 08/30/2024
• Label:

• Nuclear Blast

Streaming not yet available

Let's face it: until not long ago, holding a new Nails album in our hands would have seemed like a utopian condition. After all, the self-destructive process that began with the cancellation of the promotional tours for “You Will Never Be One of Us”, landing in the roster of the colossus Nuclear Blast welcomed by a unanimous wave of consensus from the public and critics, and continued with the disintegration of the group's line-up, with the not exactly regular mind of Todd Jones left alone at the helm of the project, did not exactly leave much hope for the continuation of the career of this bastion of the hardcore/grind/death metal scene of the 2000s, capable with his earth-shaking and very rough style of imposing himself well beyond the usual underground circuits.
Perhaps because he was caught off guard by an attention he never expected to receive, the Californian singer/guitarist took a long time to put the pieces back together and find the necessary momentum, first writing the entire “Pain into Power” by his friends Terror and then, having finally made peace with himself, working in great secrecy on the composition of this “Every Bridge Burning”, yet another slam dunk destined to leave its mark with its now perfectly tested mix of extreme metal and hardcore instances.
Having recruited veterans such as Shelby Lermo on second guitar (Ulthar, Thanatotherion), Carlos Cruz on drums (Warbringer) and Andrew Solis on bass (Apparition), and having put himself in the hands of Kurt Ballou for the production of the album, who is very good at giving a warm and authentic appeal to the whole thing, our man has then resumed his usual incendiary path, taking great care not to revise a formula that, however simple, few nowadays seem to be capable of managing with such ease.
Ignorance in power, it goes without saying, but with a taste in terms of songwriting – translated into catchy and meaningful songs – nothing short of remarkable, the result of the meeting/clash between the school of Nasum/Rotten Sound on one side and that of a certain Earache catalogue (Entombed and Napalm Death) on the other, with some thrash metal thrusts to make the whole even more derailing.
The result, for the fourth time in a row, is a tracklist that would be an understatement to call concise, and in which the art of the riff – intended as a wrecking ball thrown at the listener – dictates the law in a handful of frenetic, ferocious and insanely dynamic episodes.
A flow as barbaric as you want, but which denotes the expert and careful hand with which Jones mixes the elements of his background, and in which every blow inflicted and received becomes an unrepeatable moment of experience, be it a breakdown or a blast-beat discharge. This time around, the hits are called “Imposing Will”, “Give Me the Painkiller”, “Lacking the Ability to Process Empathy” and “No More Rivers to Cross”, but it goes without saying that, in a context like this, it is also superfluous to start doing too much analysis. The average level is and remains high, so much so as to make the collection the best Nails material since “Abandon All Life”.
Concrete music for people who don't like to get lost in bullshit.