2010 was the year that the world got it's face mercilessly caved in by the sheer metallic awesomeness that was Nails - "
Unsilent Death". It was a record that crossed over into a lot of different scenes; it was heavy enough for the metal kids, had brutal mosh riffs for the hardcore fans, and was fast and perfectly bullshit-free enough so that grindheads could get into it too. In my eyes it's a near perfect record, and I continue to jam it to this day. So how do they follow it up after three long years? They do the same thing again, only louder, faster, and heavier! One could argue that "
Abandon All Life" is too close to a being a carbon copy of "
Unsilent Death"; both have 10 tracks, are under 20 minutes, both have a slower track at the mid-way and end of the album. On the outside, it does look eerily similar (speaking of the outside, I finally figured out what the cover art is, and it makes it a hell of a lot better), but musically, Nails have mixed it up in just enough ways to keep it from being "Unsilent Death Pt. 2". For one, they've gotten a lot faster. The grind influence went up more than a few notches on here, the drums are absolutely pummeling and sound like a full on elephant stampede. A lot more metal too, with some pretty obvious nods to classic death metal bands. The breakdown to the title track, "
Abandon All Life", is total Morbid Angel worship, and the Suffocation-style slam riff at the end of "
Gods Cold Hands" is fantastically brutish. If anything, I can see a lot of the people that were attracted to the hardcore side of Nails getting turned off here. There are breakdowns galore, but they don't have the primal toughness that "
Unslient Death" did. The slower songs also aren't really that spectacular this time around too. The previously mentioned mid-track, "Wide Open Wound", just trudges along with some pretty un-captivating riffs for it's 3+ minute run time. The closer, "
Suum Quique", also suffering from a horrible case of endtro-riff-going-on-for-too-long-syndrom (much like "
Unsilent Death" actually...huh). Overall though, Nails came back and conquered the first quarter of 2013 with a devastating album, definitely one of the best I've heard all year. Pick this up asap! Hopefully next time we won't have to wait three more years for another 17 minutes of music!
Rating: 9/10
~VII
Along with Defeated Sanity's Verblendung, for me this is with no doubt the best release of the year so far. I like it even more than Unsilent Death, but I think it's because of the production, it oozes entombedcore.
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