Nails ‘Unsilent Death’ CD 2010

OUCH. Nails are NOT screwin’ around here. ‘Unsilent Death’ is some seriously nasty grinding FILTH and no mistake. At slightly less than fourteen minutes long, it’s certainly the SHORTEST violent clubbing you’ll ever get, but it’s one of the most VIOLENT.

Think ‘Fifteen Counts of Arson’ by His Hero Is Gone, ‘Horrified’ by Repulsion and ‘Scum/F.E.T.O’ -era Napalm Death. Nails are what grindcore USED to be – somewhere between the dirtiest of old-school death metal and the pre-D-Beat attack of filthy crustcore.

Blasting STRAIGHT in with the face-meltingly ferocious attack of ‘Conform’, blastbeat in full-effect and grinding bass to the fore, Nails barely let up for the quarter of an hour it takes to rip through the ten tracks of ‘Unsilent Death’ – it’s not QUITE a full-on blasting assault, but it IS near-as-dammit. ‘Scum Will Rise’ sounds like Repulsion playing His Hero Is Gone – filthy FILTHY bass and a ferocious vocal pile-up preceding a grooving Napalm-style mosh part. ‘Your God’ is pure old-school Napalm Death with crust vocal ferocity, and ‘Suffering Soul’ also has a KILLER Napalm vibe. The title track, ‘Unsilent Death’ itself, has a neck-breaking hardcore groove to it that reminds me very much of Napalm Death tracks like ‘Success?’ but with a serious Entombed guitar thang going on. The track breaks down into a pounding bass-led groove with howling feedback ala Godflesh on a few occasions over it’s EPIC two and a half minute length.

By Nails’ standards, that’s virtually ELP.

‘Traitor’ blasts in fits and starts, and ‘I Will Not Follow’ smashes skulls and breaks necks until halfway through when a MASSIVE riff not incredibly dissimilar to ‘Scum’ chainsaws its way in. KILLER. ‘No Servant’ is angry as fuck and shot through with a brilliantly atonal ‘solo’, ‘Scapegoat’ is another bass-driven rager with a massive mosh/skank section at the end, and the near-four-minute prog odyssey, ‘Depths’, is full-on chainsaw bass and guitar ‘bum-tit-bum-tit’ crust that has a total Godflesh grinding bass and SCREEEE ending.

After all THAT, I feel absolutely fucking BATTERED…and I LOVE it.

After Black Breath, Southern Lord serves up ANOTHER winner – still slightly sweded in the geetar-tone, but with the ‘rabid’ factor cranked up to eleven. It clearly ain’t ALL about doom anymore.

If ‘Unsilent Death’ doesn’t give you a raging bangover, then you’re already DEAD.

Label: Southern Lord
Website: www.myspace.com/unsilentdeath

Scribed by: Paul Robertson