YHWH Nailgun - 45 Pounds Review
YHWH Nailgun’s 45 Pounds aims to save rock — but feels more like a demo than a revival.
A transatlantic hype train is the most powerful tool a young rock band can have, especially in a period so starved for genuinely exciting bands. However, such malnutrition can often lead to undue praise -- hungry for a group that has any original ideas, it seems the music press has already crowned Queens’ YHWH Nailgun as the saviours of rock music, the next great New York band, the group ready to take over the movement of new-age noise that swept the underground before Covid and never regained its ground when venues reopened. As someone who is rake-thin and underfed from Windmill and Shacklewell bands as substantive as a ready-salted grab bag, I wanted them to be this too. Certainly their singles seemed to promise such potential and hard to deny that 45 Pounds features engaging work and makes for a solid listen. Yet, for as much potential as it has, it’s more appetizer than meal.
The group has been at it for years, carefully cultivating their image in their legendary live shows as a group of friends with unreal rhythmic chops all around and the freakshow dance moves and the captivating sounds of a beaten ibex from vocalist Zack Borzone. They made the intelligent move of putting their rhythm section at the forefront; indeed it’s easily the most memorable thing about the group, with grooves more reminiscent of Liquid Liquid or even the dancier work of Lizzy Mercier Descloux than any post-punk contemporaries. Sam Pickard has become known for his almost eerie presence onstage, dorky and seemingly happy-go-lucky while blasting the audience into decibelic oblivion. On stage he pounds the skins with the prose and movement of a beat poet on the perfect dose of Benzedrine, an aspect which has translated perfectly to the record. Whether it be the bludgeoning force of “Sickle Walk” or the fleet-foot precision of “Animal Death Already Beating”, he’s consistently the strongest part of the band and his talents alone make YHWH Nailgun worth the exasperated think-pieces about the future of rock music.
However, there’s a lot that doesn’t translate to the record, mainly the overpowering sonic force which has come to define them whether they’re playing Vortex or a train tunnel in the putrid hell known as Bushwick. Much of the album from its opening notes sounds like the experience you’d get listening to it from outside the door to the venue and is endlessly frustrating because of it. This is especially notable on a track like “Ultra Shade (Beat My Blood Dog Down)” which clearly is attempting to beat the listener to a pulp, but just cannot auditorily accomplish it. Occasionally (most notably on “Pain Fountain”) Borzone’s wails feel like he’s doing an impression of Filth-era Michael Gira while trying not to wake the neighbours. Compare this to their idols and the limitless sonic wavelengths those no-wave bands created with their noise and the experience is night-and-day. Recorded music is not theatre, I should not be expected to use my imagination to imagine how heavy this should feel when it doesn’t achieve that effect in the finished product.
I’d be more forgiving on this point if they did not seem to have had as much time as a band can be afforded to get this right. They’ve steadily built more and more positive attention since Covid, yet listening to live sets from two years ago online, it’s shocking how little they’ve grown over this period. As much talent as they have, and they have a lot of it, a debut album is often the most time a promising young band will get to develop their sound and ideas before being cast off to a life of touring and fears of losing an audience through a sound change. To have the production lack this much frustrates me, knowing how much promise they’ve shown both in their live shows and in flashes on this record.
Even more so, is how a number of these songs feel quite half-baked and never seem to deviate from their formula of song structures. “Ultra Shade” feels like an extended intro to something you can sink your teeth into, before abruptly ending at 1:44. When you get into the subsequent track in “Iron Feet”, it feels functionally identical, without feeling like a continuation of where the previous track left off. All that seems to differ is the drumbeat and halfway through the album (already more of an EP at 21 minutes), some of its most interesting tricks start to get old as they refuse to evolve these ideas both within the songs and from track to track. The distorted quasi-vibraphone sounds emanating from the synth soar blissfully high, but hearing those same notes time and time again gets old quick.
It's no coincidence that their singles, which remain the best songs on the album, are the most fleshed-out with clear bridges and sonic variations. YHWH Nailgun are at their best when they operate in an effective state of ebb and flow, most prominent on the tight explosiveness of the genuinely transcendent “Castrato Raw (Fullback)”, which finds Borzone at his most vocally effective and using the concept of castration as a symbol for the loose ends one finds themselves in during a mental health breakdown. Perhaps this is why, despite being written years ago and, in the case of “Tear Pusher”, being released nearly a year and a half ago, they’re still on the album. These are the types of anthemic early songs that a band should build off of for their debut, but instead it feels like they’re resting on their laurels.
The band does occasionally try to mix it up on tracks besides their singles, but they’re often so short that there’s hardly time to let these moments land at all. For instance, in “Blackout” (clocking in at a whopping 2:58!) they tease an ambient section for 20 seconds, and in “Pain Fountain” they close out with some machine gun noises, but they always go back to the formula just as quickly. The end result is feeling like you’ve heard all of its tricks by the 10 minute mark. Even the closer “Changer” has absolutely nothing that would indicate its a closing track, except for it cutting off in the middle of a drumbeat, a choice which might be effective on an album that gave the listener more to be in awe of, but instead comes across somewhat superficial
We laud a band that offers us a fresh option because, as sad as it might be to admit, we’re desperate to exist in a scene that contains inspiring music made with real instruments. YHWH Nailgun are more than talented enough people and have more than enough tools at their disposal, so there is no reason they shouldn’t return to the studio and create something that everyone knows they are capable of. 45 Pounds then, is ultimately a step towards a revival, but frustratingly it falls short at giving the rock scene the shot of adrenaline it sorely needs.