AURAL DEVASTATION is a regular column about heavy rock music. This month,
Nails claim the title of most brutal band running at the moment, and
Children of God combine sludge and aggressive hardcore into one swampy sound. Plus songs from
Akimbo and
Paint It Black and
Gaytheist.
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Nails - "Abandon All Life"
Nails were once known only for being the band featuring ex-Terror guitarist Todd Jones. Nothing can be further from the truth now, as Terror has continued to release their meat-headed moshcore albums for the hardcore community and Todd Jones has successfully gravitated Nails towards being one of the better grind bands out there.
Abandon All Life, released on Southern Lord Records earlier in March, is 17 minutes of pure, unadulterated brutality, not for the faint of heart. Recorded at Kurt Ballou's God City Studios, the trio have mastered their combination of grind, power violence, metal and hardcore into a full out World War III assault on the ear drums. Nuclear holocaust is hardly something to be worried about in today's world, just what happens if Nails stays on this path of destruction.
Akimbo - "Equal Opportunity Asshole"

Record Store Day came and went on April 20th, and amongst the chaos of independent record stores nationwide, Seattle power-trio Akimbo released their swan song album
Live to Crush to 500 eager souls. The trio called it
quits last year, but recorded their final unreleased material and released it on Alternative Tentacles. Outside of having one of the best album covers of the year,
Live to Crush is everything that Akimbo was the best at. Monster rock riffs, bludgeoning basslines and ferocious drums sound like army of orcs manning the helm of a hard rock band. Akimbo carried the heavy torch in Seattle as the rest of the city fell prey to bearded and flanneled indie folk rock pretty boys, and now the phoenix rising of the band Sandrider continues the lonesome slog. If you got your hands on this one, you are one of the lucky ones.