Nak'ay (USA) - Closed Doors / Open Veins (2021)

 

Closed Doors / Open Veins is the explosive, pummeling first full length from 13-year grindcore veterans Nak'ay. The band sprints through 17 songs in less than 15 minutes, but the impression is that of focus and ferocity rather than slightness or brevity. Nothing is wasted here, and there's precious little in the way of filler.

What's on display across this record is a heavy, hyperfast strain of traditionalist grindcore that will appeal to fans of Suffering Mind, Insect Warfare and P.L.F. It's hard to convey how laser focused this material is, except to say that it makes those aforementioned bands feel languid by comparison. It's as if you used the "remove silence" tool in audio editing software to cut out all the downtime in these songs, leaving only pure blasting grind.

Opener "Deprivation Siege" is a prime example of this, with guitars that sound like industrial drilling equipment, jackhammer drums and dual vocals split between growls and higher screams. Mid-album track "Osario" adds a vocal sample and a brief downtempo intro, but as soon as the vocals hit it's all hyper speed and shredding guitars. "Residual Eradication" introduces a brief breakdown and half-time trudge in its middle, only for blasting drums to re-enter soon after and launch the track into space again.

While perpetually on the other side of splits with bigger names like Suffering Mind and Unholy Grave through the bulk of their career, Nak'ay come across as a main attraction here. This modest collection of mid-fi rippers has elevated Nak'ay from the band of the future to the band of right now. Sometimes good grind is all it takes, and this is very good grind.

Closed Doors / Open Veins is available in CD, on tape and on vinyl preorder (all of which come with an immediate-download digital copy) on Nak'ay's Bandcamp.