Nailbomb

Point Blank (Roadrunner)
by Paul Lee

So I get this CD by a band called Nailbomb entitled Point Blank, and the name rings a bell somewhere in my cerebrum. This baby is put out by the esteemed Roadrunner records so I think this may be interesting. The CD cover is brutal, a picture of a Vietnamese woman during “the conflict” with the barrel of an M-16 smack dab next to her cranium. I am ready to be pummeled by this sonic experience…

I’m hit by a wave of techno drum and distorto-bass and my face is torn off by a barrage of grinding guitar hitting minor chord changes in hardcore fashion. I grope around for my face and reattach it to my skull ready to take on the mind-crushing experience of Nailbomb. This is music to destroy enemy artillery with.

And then, it hits me, the tortured and barbaric throat on the first track, “Wasting Away” is none other than Sepultura’s throat-guy, Max Cavalera. My neurons start to dig into my memory cells (which are rapidly deteriorating from the assault of Nailbomb) and remember that Max and a fellow named Alex Newport from Fudge Tunnel constructed this brutal little side project. They share screams, guitar, and bass duties with drumming assistance by Sepultura’s Igor Cavalera and some computerized drum dude.

The sound and content of Nailbomb is a crushing concoction of thrash, hardcore, and industrial with a dash of death thrown in for harsh measure. I’m battered and bruised from this little listening experience, but struck by the ferocity and excitement that Point Blank has shattered me with. This is rather an approach that fuses the two sounds and even borders on a Godflesh -ike approach. And if you thought Sepultura and Fudge Tunnel were uncompromisingly hard, then you ain’t heard nothin’ till you’ve checked out Nailbomb!!

As brutal as Point Blank is, Nailbomb still maintain a sense of humor (way screwed-up) amidst their political and social rage. There are sweet little ditties like “World of Shit,” “For Fuck’s Sake,” and “Religious Cancer” to offend and horrify even the most open-minded of your friends. Most tunes are more straight-forward thrashcore with mechanized drum. They’re basic and bone-crushing. Other songs like “Sum of Your Achievements” have a definite, repetitive, industrial (but still relentless) flavor to them. It’s not all whiplash-inducing stuff either: Max and Alex know how to keep the pace changes in the songs interesting and unpredictable.

Nailbomb have created something that may have had its incubation in their noggins as a little side project creating some noise that wasn’t up their bands’ respective alleys, but it’s something more. This is a terrifyingly good album without a single limp track on it. Hey, it may not be the most incredibly diverse happily toxic creation ever, but that matters not; Point Blank is unnerving, and who thinks that Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots are hard and rebellious?

Point Blank is a grand icing (filled with shrapnel and gunpowder) to the good stuff that Fudge Tunnel and Sepultura have baked. Damn, as if there wasn’t a good enough amount of harsh ‘n heavenly music to go around, here’s more for you. Eat and be settled!