As it stands, there are a few ways you could interpret what a YHWH NAILGUN is… well, at least three. One, a home renovation device loaded up with rounds literally made of the Hebrew god. Two, a home renovation device loaded with rounds made for the Hebrew god… as in, the Hebrew god may or may not be getting renovated.
But the third one is our favorite – the incredibly interesting noise band from New York whose recent album 45 Pounds took us by storm this weekend. From the moment the record kicked off, we kept thinking “damn, we’re going to have to come back and listen to the whole thing,” but no… it demanded our attention then and there as we took in the whole thing with zero breaks.
The whole thing is pretty hard to describe, but there are some reference points that more or less make sense: the brutally abstract futurism of various Zach Hill projects, the haunting drawls of Mamaleek, the grinding din of Godflesh… but somehow it also sort of fits in with the ArcTanGent scene?
Check it out below:
The drums often give the vibes of percussion maestro Joshua Blackmore, responsible for the perfectly unstable verve of records like Brokespeak from Strobes and Angus Bayley’s Everything’s Dangerous. Vocalist Zack Borzone’s heavily grated rasp almost brings to mind The Chariot‘s Joshua Scogin, but trapped in some sort of digital prison. The instrumentals overall cover a lot of ground, but all generally tie together in the way they sound like they’re freshly sentient robots or time traveling wizards trying to speed up the musical fate of humanity.
Whatever the case is, and whatever people call it, it ain’t easy listening. But damn, is it pretty cool.
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