To get your hands on this split 7” from Skin Like Iron and Nails, you will have to part with 10 of your shiniest golden nuggets, and be prepared to wait a couple of anxious weeks whilst USPS decide whether to stress test your purchase. But that’s the price you have to pay if you want to keep supporting self-released EPs from these two Golden State hardcore bands.
At first, this got my interest due to involvement of Nails, the So Cal based grinding hardcore act. They play fast and in your face. Perfect. Their first track ‘Annihilation’ is a gurgling mix of thrash and hardcore – think ‘Conform’ and ‘Scapegoat’ from 2010’s Unsilent Death. The band seem to have scooped a lot of the mid range out of this recording and the bass / guitar is very heavy on the low end. It is missing the crunch that made Unsilent Death so biting. Vocalist/guitarist Todd Jones has also opted to pitch his voice higher than before, and it’s good to hear he hasn’t succumbed to the death growl that filters through grindcore. At a mere 25 seconds long, it is easy to miss their second track ‘Cry Wolf’. With an amalgamation of obliterating power violence and punk verse, its length makes it a little disappointing.
Skin Like Iron serve up something different. Feedback and a lenghty intro piece full of layers of jagged chords flow into a melodic hardcore sound akin to Ashes Rise and Wolfbrigade. Vocalist Alex Capasso, who incidentally did the artwork for this EP, delivers one rasping verse after another. Both tracks have a dry sound, and despite the aggressive nature they remain very melodious and strangely uplifting. This is probably due to heavy use of major scale guitar leads that entwine together. This band could easily fill the void left by bands such as Pulling Teeth.
[Originally published on Onemetal]
