Review Summary: The 14 Minutes Hate will now commence.
Let's clarify one thing before we kick this whole thing off: Nails are an incredibly heavy band.
Hailing from Oxnard, California, Nails blend a potent mix of Death Metal, Hardcore Punk and Grindcore, and the resulting musical cacophony is about as accessible as it is melodic. In short, they're not trying to write Mozart's requiem on
Unsilent Death, but the straightforward simplicity of Nails' musical goal of writing the most aggressive music they possibly could makes this album remarkably refreshing. Far from the conceptual grandeur of contemporaries' efforts, such as Mastodon's
Crack The Skye or Converge's similarly crushing, but altogether more technical
Jane Doe, Nails use the 14 minutes of music on
Unsilent Death to set their sights on writing a purely heavy album. And by god do they knock the ball out of the park.
The opener, 'Conform', is a telling sign of what's ahead. Blast beats, squealing guitars, throaty shouts from frontman Todd Jones, and then it's all done. 38 seconds of fury, and that's you're opener. 'Scum Will Rise' and 'Your God' are much of the same, the former dropping in a slightly groovier riff that sounds like Pantera busted in on the recording session, and it really encapsulates where this album absolutely shines. These slower, bruising riffs contrast Nails' usual pace, adding catchiness and memorability to music that would otherwise be well performed and composed, but a little anonymous. 'Traitor' runs with a similar idea, this time dropping back early in the track to leave the d-beat drumming and bass guitar exposed, before throwing itself back into a breakneck flurry of blast beats, before once more dropping back into a sluggish, sludgy riff sure to get heads banging. And it does that all in just over 30 seconds.
Some of the cuts here are a little less about sheer pace - 'Suffering Soul' even comes close to having a hook to it with the stripped back shouts of 'Suffering soul, losing control' forming a semi-chorus, before once again dropping back into the fast-to-slow-groove motif that spans much of the record. Where the album really comes into its own, however, is when Nails write a song that's beyond the 2-minute mark. 'Unsilent Death' takes on an almost Death'n'Roll vibe, sticking to a more conventional verse-chorus song structure, coming out as the sonic equivalent of Lamb of God meets Cannibal Corpse. The flat out catchy main riff of this track makes for an unlikely earworm, and really breaks up the track listing, providing much needed respite from the all out throttling of the rest of the album. Depths is another highlight, the band taking on a far darker tone, as a more upbeat passage builds trudging, gloomy introduction. From there, the track plunges into a crushing breakdown to close itself out, grinding to a halt to end the album on a far more atmospheric note than where it started.
Nails' achievement on this album isn't simply being heavy however. Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse, Abominable Putridity; all of these bands and more know how to be stupidly heavy, because to be frank, that bit's not very difficult. What Nails do on
Unsilent Death is write an album that's as raw and uncompromising as the hardest, fastest grindcore, whilst also managing to cram earworms, atmosphere, and surprising amounts of groove into the album too. From Jones' unhinged vocal performance, the disgustingly dirty and distorted guitar tone, all the way to the nihilistic depiction of suicide on the album's artwork, everything about this record works together to create a sonically battering but truly remarkable feat of heavy music.
Unsilent Death is a modern classic of extreme metal, an exemplary example of how to write honest, straightforward, hard music, not overly obsessed with excessive technicality or priding itself on how it can leap from one incredibly slow breakdown, to another even slower, more ridiculous breakdown. Whilst neither of those things are inherently bad, it stands testament to Nails' musical chops that they have managed to write a refreshing, entertaining album that doesn't outstay its welcome, and avoids the pitfalls of modern metal's gimmicky subgenres.
To conclude: this album really isn't for everyone, but if you like heavy music, or want to dip your toes in to some of the most extreme music out there,
Unsilent Death really isn't a bad place to start.
