With their 2013 debut Abandon All Life, industrial rock trio Nails proved themselves the nastiest, heaviest band on the planet in just 17 minutes of uncompromising aural sadism. But with their third album, reissued as a full-length and titled You Will Never Be One Of Us, the Southern California outfit seem to have found a way to refine their formula for maximum destruction.
In doing so, they've crafted an album that metalheads, hardcore fans and punks can all get behind. While it might not feel as mutated and discordant as the brutal grindcore of Unsilent Death, or as sludgy as their Obscene Humanity EP, You Will Never Be One Of Us is still an essential listen for extreme music junkies.
The ominous title - which the album's first track features a bunch of peers (including Baroness, Converge and Neurosis) uttering - isn't just an attempt to set a dark mood, it's also meant as a dig at bandwagoners and sycophants, the type of folks frontman Todd Jones has no patience for. That rage is felt throughout this ferocious 21-minute album of metallic maximum smashism, as gnarly grindcore riffs and discordant blast beats collide with black metal melodies.
A great start is provided by 'They Come Crawling Back,' with frosty tremolo picking, bleak doom riffs and siren-like leads combining to create an eight minute death/grind metal assault that's as close to pure grindcore as anything the band have ever made. 'Parasite' is even more intense, with sped up drumming, a pounding breakdown and Jones' howling growl sounding a lot more pissed off than he did on Abandon All Life.
