Some bands arrive with a fully formed artistic vision. Others sound as though they’ve accidentally fallen down a flight of stairs carrying their instruments. YHWH (pronounced ‘Yahweh’) Nailgun are a bit of both. Their second album, ‘Magazine’, lasts barely 11 minutes, yet somehow it feels like a complete nervous breakdown.
There is a reason they have drawn comparisons with the Manchester cult band WU LYF — the music doesn’t sound particularly similar, but both groups share a commitment to chaos, confrontation and the idea that conventional songwriting is largely somebody else’s problem.
Where WU LYF buried melodies under reverb and mysticism, YHWH Nailgun hide theirs beneath blasts of grindcore, free jazz panic and what often sounds like malfunctioning machinery in full Lou Reed ‘Metal Machine Music’ mode.
Opener Ghost of Love immediately establishes the album’s method. Metallic drums, squealing synths and Zack Borzone’s half-shouted, half-garbled vocals collide for little more than a minute before disappearing entirely. It’s less a song than a brief public disturbance.
Later, Stillness Blues hints at something approaching structure, moving between hyperactive noise-rock and a heavier, sludge-like crawl before abruptly abandoning both ideas. The title track may be the album’s purest statement of intent. Lasting little more than 30 seconds, it fires off pinball-machine percussion, panicked vocals and fractured electronics before vanishing almost as quickly as it arrived. Throughout, drummer Sam Pickard performs minor miracles, somehow preventing the whole thing from collapsing into total incoherence.
That tension between control and chaos is what makes ‘Magazine’ so compelling. There are moments where it feels less like an album than a collection of unfinished ideas, sketches and provocations. Yet there’s also something invigorating about a band refusing to tidy up its rough edges. It’s all rough edges; only the rough edges.
The result is abrasive, occasionally brilliant and rarely boring. Whether that adds up to a fully satisfying record is debatable, but as a rallying cry for artistic disorder, ‘Magazine’ would be impossible to ignore, except that it is almost immediately over.
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