|
NAILS/SKIN LIKE IRON - SPLIT EP (7)
Splits can work one of two ways. The first is that two bands with very similar styles compete to win your vote; there’s usually a clear winner, but the overall effect is like being asked to eat two huge chocolate cakes to decide which is better, which is fine but by the end you’ve inevitably had more than your fill. The second is for the punter to be offered different styles on either half of the split, giving you two very different audio treats. Such is the case with Nails and Skin Like Iron’s split.
Skin Like Iron ply a brand of melodic hardcore (no wait, don’t stop reading!) that’s got plenty of nice Fugazi-derived guitar parts along with some rasping and screaming vocals. It’s questionable how fashionable this style is any more, but SLI are pretty good at it, combining carefully measured cuts of emotive melody and hardcore. Nails, if you don’t know by now, are an altogether more punishing prospect, dealing in delicious, Entombed-style riffage (see Trap Them, Harm’s Way, All Pigs Must Die) combined with a healthy dose of grinding, powerviolence-tinged aggression.
Nails seem like the winners in this contest, with their rattling track ‘Annihilation’ just as battering as the title suggests, but SLI are no slouches. With typical hardcore brevity, the whole thing is over in under ten minutes, leaving you time to catch your breath before you’ll want to press play again. It’s limited to 1000 vinyl copies though, so get on it!
Reviewed by Edmund Chapman
Split is available to order now at http://nailsmerch.com/
You’ll like this if… you're in the mood to mix things up with a veritable smorgasbord of carnage candy. |
|
|
CD Reviews 