YHWH Nailgun has tightened up the structures of their sound to channel their chaos into something cohesive and color-coded in their new album release, 45 Pounds. Formed in 2020 by singer Zack Borzone and producer/drummer Sam Pickard, YHWH Nailgun originated in Philadelphia before recruiting Jack Tobias and Saguiv Rosenstock upon their move to New York. Meant to be pronounced, ‘Yahweh’, the Hebrew term for God, the soul of YHWH Nailgun is more secular than sacred, nestled in the heavy chaos of their sound. However, much of the imagery the lyricism evokes feels biblical; not in a religious way but almost as if it’s stealing from the imagery and symbolism of familiar stories to express something distinctly human.

Since their first tracks on Bandcamp, they have always had an edgy, experimental, and industrial sound, at times hitting like raging punches to your eardrums. 45 Pounds channels a similar, raw, industrial power reminiscent of Author and Punisher; combustive and violent, matched with unique tempos and charged with chaos. Similar also to the energies of Frontierer and Black Midi, YHWH continues to be reliably sporadic and eternally engaging with their sound.

All of the tracks in this album feel entirely immersive; ‘Pain Fountain’ quite literally feels like you’re being baptized in and out of their sound, dunked in and struck with it, then pulled out just long enough to catch your breath, and finally forced back under again. ‘Castrato Raw’ has a breakdown familiar to ‘Time’ by Pink-Floyd and feels as if you’re being launched up into the sky and summoned by some ethereal light into another dimension (you’ll know when).

There are no familiar structures within the corpus of this album. Wildly unpredictable in its tempos and time shifts, like a journey across galloping white-water-rapids, the band manages to never lose us and never lose each other; the members always seem to be speaking the same language.

The lyrics evoke the sense of classical poetry, delivered in erratic, desperate barks and growls, intertwined with the frenetic and relentless percussions that match the vocals in intensity and volume. Drawing inspiration from figures like Walt Whitman, Frank Stanford, and Paul Celane, Borzone delivers his jumbled stanzas with a raw and primal force that feels more like a catharsis expulsion than mere singing. The vocals, as fragmented and avant-garde as the instrumentation, weave through a cascade of incoherent sounds that become almost melodic, thanks to the intricate percussion and the rapid tempos that build the rhythmic structure.

Discordant, abrasive, and overwhelming in the best of ways, like a roller coaster that has you missing your breath, it is evident that the entire band shares a unified vision both in their musical expression and the energy they collectively bring. Much of what they create thrives on instinct and spur-of-the-moment decisions, ending in a melting pot of sounds compressed into tracks that frequently last less than two minutes. Their superpower lies in the endless grip they maintain on your attention throughout the entirety of the album, with unexpected shifts and riffs and occasional explosions of sound and beauty like the sustained crescendos in ‘Tear Pusher’ shimmering alongside glittering hi-hats. When you’re driven by the raw force of intuition and instinct rather than imitation, while effortlessly synchronizing as a unit in your expression, it becomes impossible to miss.

Bringing the experimental and raw edge back to rock music, following millennial and Gen Z’s very obvious fried attention spans and dopamine addictions, their music forces us back into the moment with speedy and relentless sonic assault. The capriciousness and ambition of this album do not overshadow its overall cohesiveness, however. In construing all of these separate, daring elements together as a group, they’ve forged their own style. Attaining what they’ve stated their music to be in their Bandcamp profile, this album is a visceral blend of styles that reaches towards an absolute essence’.

Pre-Order 45 Pounds HERE