NAILBOMB – 1000% HATE – ALBUM REVIEW
10th July 2023Hey everyone! Nailbomb is back! Well not really, they’re just re-releasing all of the two things they did in one easily manageable convenient hit. I bet you can’t wait to hear those remixed and remastered tracks can you? Well, you are shit out of luck. it’s the same version of Point Blank as the original 1994 release, but FEAR NOT, there is a bonus and that bonus is that you don’t have to go to your CD rack twice because 1000% Hate features Nailbomb’s only ever live set at the 1995 Dynamo festival, that was recorded and released as Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide, which was Nailbomb’s planned swan song. I know I’m painting this release as a bit of a disappointing, potential rip off but I assure you it isn’t. So let me articulate as best I can what this band and their music mean to me, in the hope that old fans can rediscover Nailbomb and new fans can project this harsh driving classic to ironically commercial levels.
I was 17 years old in 1994, a time when Sepultura felt like the absolute Gods of Metal. I’d seen them live in 1992 in my hometown of Bristol, a tour which saw the curiously named band Fudge Tunnel as support. The singer and guitar player of Fudge Tunnel is Alex Newport, who along with Sepultura’s Max Cavelera formed Nailbomb.
Legend has it that Nailbomb allegedly wanted to record the heaviest album in the world with as little of the record company’s advance as possible, then smash the remaining moolah on drugs and booze. As a young man, halfway through puberty, deep in my formative years, and someone who idolized Max Cavelera, I naturally thought the Punk / Rock n Roll attitude of Nailbomb was really fucking cool. I can recall very clearly the first time I heard Point Blank. I was in my mate Mike’s bedroom at his parents’ gaff and I watched Mike remove the plastic wrapping from the CD with a reverence that has been sadly lost or resigned to the fringes of metal fandom who still collect physical media. (I was sent a physical copy of this release and unwrapping it is slick. smooth digipack caused some fond memories to return). I watched the CD drawer open, much slower than usual I felt, and then watched it load the CD with the familiar clunks and squeaks of the time. Then, with held breath and excited anticipation, the album kicked in like a coked-up mule with Wasting Away, a ferocious track with sickening energy and the pace of an Olympic athlete who shared half a gram of marching powder with the aforementioned Mule.
I’d dabbled in some light Ministry and some Hardcore Punk in the past but I never inhaled and other industrial bands had barely registered on my pubescent radar, so the driving, ferociously pounding ever-forward sound of Nailbomb lit me up, I was obsessed. I needed to know everything about this band and I needed to grab any and all merch so I could display to the world that I was ready and able to take the hard stuff in Metal. I scoured the metal publications for anything I could find on Nailbomb. The internet wasn’t really a thing for us in 1994, so it was the job of the metal press to inform and warp out tiny minds. I questioned with the hopeful exuberance of a Metalhead teen “Were Nailbomb going to release more original music? Were they going to tour this album in a town near me? The answer to both questions was sadly NO! My only experience of Nailbomb was going to be the studio album, but then the metal winds sent a message. Nailbomb was going to play one show in the Netherlands, at the Dynamo festival and then they were going to split! Done! Dead! Obviously, I couldn’t go. I didn’t own a passport or even know where the Netherlands was. Thankfully Nailbomb was going to release a live CD of the set called Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide. There was going to be more Nailbomb albeit the same songs and some covers but it was no less exciting.
Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide delivered exactly what you’d expect. Live, raw, brutal music that was played crustier than a cremated cob and a Levelers concert. I recall not really liking the live stuff. I thought it was sloppy, loose, and messy but it sure was fun. I’ve just revisited the live album and with my 46-year-old 2023 Ears and a thousand live gigs under my belt as a fan and a performer, I now fully understand and apricate what Nailbomb was doing. It wasn’t about being tight and polished (We had Steve Vai for that) it was about not giving a shit, playing brutal music, and ultimately being PUNK AS FUC!
So is 1000% Hate worth a purchase if you already own Point Blank and Proud to Commit Comercial Suicide? Absolutely! The CDs are presented in a Digipak with an introduction to the band on the inside cover and it has a pull-out booklet with cool interviews from the band. I’ve enjoyed revisiting the music from both a nostalgic perspective and from the perspective of a now middle-aged man who knows vastly more about how these things work. I’m not going to rate it out of 10 because it’s done its time, and found its admirers, fans, and critics, so reducing into a base score after 30 years seems reductive, so I’ll simply give it a “Fuc shit up” \m/
Track Listing
DISC ONE
Point Blank
1 Wasting Away
2 Vai Toma No Cu
3 24 Hour Bullshit
4 Guerrillas
5 Blind And Lost
6 Sum Of Your Achievements
7 Cockroaches
8 For Fuck’s Sake
9 World Of Shit
10 Exploitation
11 Religious Cancer
12 Shit Pinata
13 Sick Life
DISC TWO
Proud To Commit Commercial Suicide
1 Wasting Away (live)
2 Guerrillas (live)
3 Cockroaches (live)
4 Vai Toma No Cu (live)
5 Sum Of Your Achievements (live)
6 Religious Cancer (live)
7 Police Truck (live)
8 Exploitation (live)
9 World Of Shit (live)
10 Blind And Lost (live)
11 Sick Life (live)
12 While You Sleep, I Destroy Your World
13 Zero Tolerance
Label – Dissonance
Release – 16th June 2023
