Nailbomb’s "Point Blank" Turns 20
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How many albums are universally loved by the extreme music crowd? I can’t think of too many. You go back to the Number Of The Beasts and Ride The Lightnings, there are new-jack fans that dismiss them as cheesy or not brutal enough. Released in the last ten years? Dismissed by the old cranks. Somehow it needs to be popular enough to have been heard by just about everyone, but not so popular that it’s branded as a sellout. Hmm…how about a one-off side project of industrial metal from one guy in a thrash band and one guy in a noise rock band? It shouldn’t work, but it does; and almost perfectly, at that.
In 1994, Max Cavalera’s Sepultura was riding the huge success of Chaos A.D. while Alex Newport’s Fudge Tunnel would be winding down to its dissolution before the year was over. The two shared enough musical interests and influences to collaborate on one of the most memorable and intense metal albums of the Nineties. From the first keyboard/sample moments of opener “Wasting Away” it was clear that Point Blank was something different. And then THAT RIFF. Simple, visceral and pissed-the-fuck-off. “Carve your rights into your arm/So they won’t get taken away/Trying in vain to figure it out/Always thinking this is a waste”. From the first verse it’s clear Cavalera’s anger with the world has not abated. Whether it is bloodthirsty politicians in “Sum Of Your Achievements” or blind idolatry in “Religious Cancer”, Cavalera and Newport take on all the wrongs they see around them.
Industrial music was already a well-established genre by the Nineties; bands like Ministry, Godflesh and especially Nine Inch Nails (whose landmark album The Downward Spiral was released the same day as Point Blank) had pushed the sound to a large audience. Nailbomb utilized samples, white noise, sound clips and drum machines to enhance the industrial edge of the songs. Dialogue from the film Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer is used to an unnerving effect, as is the talking head background chatter in “24 Hour Bullshit”. Our society was evolving to the point where access and control of information was the true power. Making music that was cold and mechanical was a commentary; perhaps that is why the guitar and bass parts on Point Blank are steeped in crossover hardcore and punk, to drive home the disparity between two ends of the heavy music spectrum.
Despite being of the moment when it was released, Point Blank hardly feels outdated or irrelevant. There are numerous bands today that can trace their roots to the post-industrial scene where Nailbomb existed. Almost every cut is wall-to-wall riffs, each one heavier and more memorable than the last. The lyrical themes are also still very familiar to anyone fed up with the Holden Caulfield culture of bullshit that surrounds us:
“Don’t need sympathy/Smile it’s nothing but teeth/I’ll keep my integrity/Even if I have to sleep on the street”
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