Nails rises from its ashes.
Formed in 2007, the band released two EPs, three albums and two splits before disappearing from the radar. In 2024, founder Todd Jones (guitar/vocals, ex-Terror), accompanied by Carlos Cruz (drums, Mantic Ritual, NecroSound, Warbringer), Shelby Lermo (guitar, Human Corpse Abuse, Thanatotherion, Ulthar) and Andrew Solis (bass, Apparition), announced the release of their fourth album, Every Bridge Burning, on Nuclear Blast.
Nails have always played one of the most violent mixes of Grindcore and Powerviolence around, always pushing the boundaries of rage, and I was sure I was going to get trampled by Every Bridge Burning. And I was. Ten tracks, seventeen minutes and forty-four seconds of devastation produced by Kurt Ballou (Converge) and illustrated by Jef Whitehead (Leviathan), which obviously leave no one indifferent, so abrasive and devastating is this chainsaw sound (no doubt due to HM-2s pushed to the limit).
I’ll spare you the details, but each track is a veritable incitement to a decerebrate mosh under Todd‘s vociferations, accompanied by a more or less lively, but always vindictive rhythm that leaves no room for hesitation. Everything in these ten tracks is there to serve the savagery, whether it’s the jerky patterns, the controlled dissonance or the rawest roots available, no element is left to chance to create riffs one nastier than the next. The brief compositions follow one another at lightning speed and all sound the same, with the possible exception of No More Rivers To Cross, the last one, which displays an oppressive slowness from start to finish.
Nails hadn’t given us any dates to look forward to, and the band have re-emerged from the shadows with the same rage as in their early days, offering us on Every Bridge Burning a real reason to hit everything within reach.
95/100