Nailgunner
Apocalypse. Now or Never.

October 2008
Released: 2008, AreaDeath Productions
Rating: 4.0/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Fuckin´ wicked A...!! Whenever crisp, heavy and raw thrash metal knocks on my door, I´m always keeping my doors wide open for it, and warmly welcome it to pay me a visit at home.



So, welcome Nailgunner - make yourselves comfortable at my own little thrash castle. Coffee or tea served with a bottle of Koskenkorva, perhaps? Fine, there you are then...



Nailgunner come and kick our teeth in pretty effectively with their less than half hour thrash assault (8 songs in some 28 minutes...pretty damn cool!), old school style, on the band´s debut album, titled APOCALYPSE. NOW OR NEVER. The band cites such bands as Razor, Exodus, Dark Angel, Onslaught and the like as some of their main influences, and you can pretty much hear from everything that the Nailgunner camp have had a serious attempt to achieve something similar musically on their debut. Hearing Dark Angel´s influence as an important part of Nailgunner´s sound, is actually very easy when throwing songs off of APOCALYPSE in and out. The riffs are heavy and pleasingly crisp overall - and early Exodus´ and early Slayer´s ghosts appear through their frantic and aggressive thrash tornadoes every once in a while as well. I would personally add Possessed to the same list of their main influences. One just has to listen to "The Power Never Fades" in order to mark some kinda familiar Possessed vibes in the riff department, whereas "Bodyhammer" offers plain Dark Angel worship (the WE HAVE ARRIVED era), especially in that riff department - just like "Futuristic Death" does.



Probably the vocals are the only thing on APOCALYPSE that really ain´t on the same level with the band´s intense and heavy thrash in my opinion. Jussi´s vocal parts occasionally tend to be a bit monotonous, which could be worked on a bit. More screams to them - and his vocalism would rise to a whole different level, I suppose.



Now let a full-scale thrash spree begin. Starting it with Nailgunner´s excellent shots for some real thrash on APOCALYPSE, wouldn´t be a bad choice at all to start your feast with, I think. ;o)