Review Summary: I gave you all
Within the realm of modern grindcore,
Unsilent Death and
Abandon All Life remain, from this rabid fanboi’s perspective,
iconic. The former was
the 2010s genre gateway - a gristley pummel funnel of neck-snap-deth and cheap crusty adrenaline. The latter, in turn, contorted + bludgeoned + fucked the formula in all the right ways, adding in sludge, shrapnel and actual, palpable, delectable, delightful,
dread. Their niche between unlistenable cacophony, joyfully evil thematics and toe-tapping accessibility was planted, firmly, with less than 30-minutes of music, and, with it, scene-wide adoration (mostly). So what, then, when 2016’s
You Will Never Be One of Us did duller things with their mould - elongate, polish, declaw, etc. - for the band were at an apex, their fanbase established and content with yet another pummelling, even if diluted.
Eight years later, with a complete roster rehaul and the usual comeback narrative brewing expectantly, the same forgiving standards do not apply. There is no leeway for mediocrity. The weight of delayed gratification demands more. A return to form is required. The attainment of everything must be had. Why do I keep doing this to myself…
Sidestepping the temptation for bold reinvention,
Every Bridge Burning sticks staunchly to the staple NAILS lane, opting once again for beefy Ballou production, chunky monkey riffs and sweaty loud noises. Quelle surprise number one: it is a bile-frothing, rib-slicing, head-popping romp. Quelle surprise number two: the ungodly standards against which it will be judged are simply not met. While fun (very fun, actually) it just
lacks, across all NAILSian metrics, as less gnashing, breakneck and characterful. There is no tangible statement here. The reverberations quiver, instead, like a homage to an echo of a band that no longer is. The closer, for example, reflects the group’s trademark slowburn fade out, but feels tributary, not its own, the distorted triads and pensive chuggas harkening back to an aesthetic that their original configuration did so much better. The entire LP follows suit, each cymbal crash a footnote, every riff a reference, little attempt at anything beyond rosey-eyed squinting, backwards. It slaps, but vicariously,
channeling rather than
being.
As I write these words, I’m struck by how obvious and uninteresting of a case I’m making. Of course
reconstituted scraps of dead band make adequate album is not a gripping headline; it was never going to be. It’s the delusion of expectation, the fantasy of fandom, of praying desperately for an album that could never be, for a return to a time and a place,
that is the root of the dissatisfaction, not Todd Jones and co., whose performances here are tight as anything I’ve heard from the genre this year. Blistering and loud remains the
Every Bridge Burning experience, low-calorie and inessential, but worth the 17-minute price of admission. Expect a
You Will Never Be One of Us Part 2, but lesser - a less frantic and more performative NAILS - and you may just avoid the dilemma of the unattainable; hope for anything more at your peril.
