Most hardcore punk can sound like nothing more than a sonic blur with very little to differentiate one song from the next. But deep within the crevices of the genre are bands who stayed true to a loud-fast-rules ethos – established by bands like Cro-Mags and Black Flag – while still being harbingers of what the genre might sound like in the future.
In Thatcher’s Britain Discharge, Napalm Death and Heresy railed against nuclear war; in Washington DC, bands like Void and United Mutations brought the noise; and in Japan, blindingly frenetic sounds emanated from bands like Lip Cream and Gauze.
Oxnard, California’s Nails follow on from that lineage. Since their inception in 2007, the trio have managed to sound likethe audio equivalent of shoving your face into a blast furnace. When prodded on what exactly is the method to the band’s madness, guitarist and vocalist Todd Jones plays coy. There’s no inspiration from watching old reruns of nuclear tests in the Pacific or mass genocide. The truth is far more simple.
“I don’t want to give away too many of my secrets but there are two things that immediately come to mind,” says Jones. “One is each song has to offer something that no other song on the record does. Two is when tracking the record, key changes from song to song are heavily considered. We try not to start a song in the same key that the last song ended in, and also try not to have multiple songs in the same key but that is often difficult.”
Jones is something of a hardcore veteran, having played in such prominent bands of the past few decades as straight-edge Carry On and the metal-tinged Terror. But with Nails, it seems he has stripped away the youthful exuberance and sonic flare of those previous bands to create a blunt and strangely more mature sound that could only come from the grim mind of someone who has had his fair share of playing dumpy clubs and sleeping on hard floors in the name of art.
There’s clearly more to Nails than simple, straightforward bashing, and their fourth full-length album, You’ll Never Be One Of Us, is further proof. In just over 20 minutes, Jones along with John Gianelli on bass and Taylor Young on drums, once again create something matchless while never deviating from the song structure and sequencing they laid out in 2010 on their debut full-length, Unsilent Death.
“The sequencing on Unsilent Death felt right to us,” Todd remembers. “The amount of mid-paced songs, the amount of breakneck grind songs and the amount of fast-paced songs made sense, so we stuck to that. It was part of making sure we maintain our style and sound.”
Every Nails record since Unsilent Death has been made up of 10 songs with the final one being a slow, hypnotic monster usually much longer than the average minute-long tracks which proceed it. On You Will Never Be One Of Us, the closing They Come Crawling Back comes in over the eight-minute mark and references the molasses-caked throb of British 80s noise rockers like Skullflower or Godflesh. In regards to the inspiration behind the Nails’ recording template, Jones cites Victim in Pain, the debut 10-song full-length released in 1984 by New York hardcore pioneers Agnostic Front.
The song signaled a new era in hardcore where instead of the lyrical focus being on the constant fear of Reagan and nuclear war, Agnostic Front vocalist Roger Miret dug deep to figure out the inner workings of his desperate mind; a theme which also runs rampant through Jones’s lyrical content. The album ends with the plodding, echo-drenched track With Time. “Putting a slow dirge at the end made sense to me,” Todd says. “Aside from sticking the dirge at the end of the record, there also must be a feeling of finality to the track. In Time feels like it should be at the end of the record and that’s mainly what’s important: feeling.”
Another recurring theme on the Nails’ full-lengths are their striking titles with Obscene Humanity and Abandon All Life being some of the more chipper ones. When asked what the meaning behind You Will Never Be One Of Us could be, Jones says: “It’s about sycophants. It’s about people who take more than they give. It’s about people who attach themselves to something you love and help flourish for personal gain and not to help. The album title was made for the people who have dedicated themselves to hardcore, punk and metal music and want to see all the people who use and abuse it gone.”
For a band creating such a heavy vibe and dark helix of sound, Nails seem to be gaining recognition outside the basements and dank club spaces usually suited for such an uncompromising band. They have currently received press in Rolling Stone and will be on an extensive tour throughout the summer, culminating at Ozzfest in the fall. So will they continue to work within the same guidelines and structures they have set, and if so, how far can they take it? “It’s hard to say” says Jones. “We just finished our latest album and our well of creativity is a bit dried up at this point, but my raw idea every time is to just to make something more scathing, more hurtful and more abrasive.”
You Will Never Be One Of Us is out now on Nuclear Blast Records
