Skin Like Iron & Nails

Another free release here, this one I missed from back in January. Skin Like Iron from San Francisco and Oxnard, California’s infamous Nails unleash two scathing hardcore tracks each that can be streamed over at Decibel magazine. This split was released as a limited only wax pressing of one thousand copies (900 on black and 100 on blue) available only from the band. Skin Like Iron feed angry hardcore modernism off of old school punk melodies, combining new and old to successfully rock out. Nails are basically the most metal hardcore band out there these days, so much so in fact that I’m dubious as to whether Nails should be classified more as a metal or hardcore band (though realistically percentages are drawn somewhere close to the middle). Not that it really matters. Nails mean business - big, bad, pissed off business, and if you have any ounce of real rock in your soul, you’d be a fool not to thrash your neck and pump your fist to this. This split upholds the wicked quality of all their previous releases, so you all have three more minutes of adrenaline-charged, punked-out metal madness to muck about to. If you’re remotely interested in any hardcore/metal groups and you don’t know Nails, educate yourself immediately. Even if you’re not into hardcore (yet), there can be no harm done in giving this a listen as it’s free and only nine minutes long. I believe the 7"s are still available for purchase too. So get on it.

In short: Free split. Four songs. Sick hardcore.

Standout tracks: Nails kill it with “Annihilation”

Score: 9.0

Skin Like Iron Facebook

Nails Facebook

Listen

Buy

Split Cranium - Split Cranium

Surely, this album doesn’t need to long a review… Why? Well, Aaron Turner of Isis plays crust punk with Jussi Lehtisalo of Circle should be all you need to know, really.

But that’s not gonna stop me raving a little bit. Split Cranium leans heavily on the hardcore side of crustcore, or even rather the crustcore side of hardcore, rockin’ oldschool punk numbers that will, as suggested, dash you brains out. But don’t think that musicians as seminal as this are going to stick to the books ‘til the end of the line. The first minute of “Black Binding Plague” is nothing but noise, then WHACK raddest oldschool D-beat ever.  “Blossoms From Boils” starts out like classic hardcore punk, then drops and hits you for a full two minutes with a single rock’n’roll riff that almost sounds like “Thunderstrike” (ACDC), only twenty to thirty times less lame. “Retrace the Circle” basically closes the album on the same note, except it’s even more driving and epic. Turner’s vocals are straight out of Isis, and it’s a pleasure to hear them so prominently here, although they work best on the final rock-out. It seems to me at times they were possibly slowing optimum energization on other tracks if only a little. His post-metal drones and bestial hardcore growls add a modern element to a record that really has a very oldschool heart. In the end there’s no way you could call it a bad thing, but I think there is a slight clash there that stops this album from being the most effective it could be.

Clocking twenty-five minutes, the self-titled Split Cranium debut could definitely be labeled “short and sweet”. The band members could also possibly be accused of “letting their hair down” here, but certainly never blamed for it. There is no self-respecting lover of rock music who doesn’t do the same themselves. But these guys do it cooler than we do. These riffs are killer, and I always unconsciously wanted to see what it was like when these rocked the Kasbah a bit harder. Split Cranium is an album I’ve got down to more than once lately and I’m guaranteed to drink some beer to it again more than once. The question is: Will SC be a once off thing, or will this union have the chance to fully reach the potential that this record shows with blinding clarity?

In summary: Split Cranium keep it real, but branch out. A unique record in the punk scene, kind of like a crust’n’roll punk album with noise highlights. Highly recommended.

Standout tracks: “Sceptres to Rust”, “Retrace the Circle”

Score: 8.5

Black Breath - Sentenced to Life

Modern hardcore. Modern thrash. Black Breath epitomize the collision of these two new forces of rock music, and add a dash of death metal just to ensure pure heaviness. Don’t expect much classic era thrashing (except in album art and lyrical themes, which is mad), but don’t expect any cop-out retreats to metalcore breakdowns either. It’s evident on Sentenced to Life that Black Breath have found out how to kick arse and are just going to do it, as this album continues on exactly where Heavy Breathing left off. It doesn’t suffer from this however, if anything this is a little bit more intense than the last record, and I reckon there should be at least one more album before this specific take on metal is exhausted.

Brutal thrash grooves and rhythmic hardcore vocals like knives flying from your sound system. Sentenced to Life is solid from beginning to end much like its predecessor, and once again the production is absolutely incredible. The production is so fucking good you can hook the shittiest little pocket speaker up to this and BB will still have your head banging, thanks to Kurt Ballou of Converge’s incredible skillz in the studio. Almost every riff is sick as all hell; driving, downright catchy hardcore thrash poundings. Vocals are pissed off as fuck, holding the anthemic hardcore spirit of the band intact through the periods of hard metal annihilation. Check out the sweet oldschool cover art as you listen to this and that brutal judge’s gavel will smash your face. It’s time for me to go and damage my neck further with another listening of this album. There is nothing left to be said, except: BUY.

In short: If you like this kind of music Sentenced to Life is going to kick your pathetic little arse.

Standout tracks: Home of the Grave, Endless Corpse

Score: 9.0

Mauser - Isolation EP

Last year, Florida's Mauser released one of the best punk debut EPs of the year: End of the Line, a scathing crust-noise attack that punished rebellious souls across the world bigtime. After touring Japan, they’re back with another 7” called Isolation. Maybe I got a bit too excited about it beforehand, I was expecting that D-beat driven noise assault, but my first reaction was confusion as I waited for the music to develop. I listened to it once and thought, ‘Well that was pretty cool, very noisy hardcore, but I need another listen or two to plumb its depths.’ The second time I listened to it, I started checking my speakers and making sure the adjustments were correct, but by the end I’d realized Mauser had completely reformatted their sound. First of all, where the hell did the drums go? One of the defining and totally murderous elements of the previous EP was the belted out superspeed D-beats which were so prominent in mix. On Isolation, all I can hear is a frenzied clattering on the snare and tom toms, and a rumbling buried far deep where the kick should be. Is this D-beat at all? Impossible to tell when you can’t hear the beat, but most of the riffs seem to be hardcore. The noise is still layered over it all, but it comes at us like a swarm of insects now, as opposed to the piercing needles of static that frequently punctured the guitar tones on the debut. It is all in all a much more difficult and less enjoyable album to grasp than End of the Line, hard to tell if it is intentionally meant to be this chaotic and dissimilar or if it’s just sloppiness and fervor for output after initial success.

Having now bitched, I’ll say that Isolation is still pretty damn good for what it is: Angry, noisy, destructive hardcore. There are some killer riffs on here, but surely Mauser is capable of creating something with more clarity and depth than what we see here. But really, bring back the beats, Mauser. Don’t sink into the mass of pretentious noisers farting around out there in the ether.

In short: Viewed in its own light this is not bad, but it’s a bit of an unexpected disappointment after last year’s audio ransacking.

Standout tracks: Deterioration, Madness

Score: 6.0