Nailwork

'Nailwork' is the melodic death metal answer to 'Stomp 442'- that is, it's an item that the metal scene is flooded with copies of that no one will buy. It's fairly understandable; it's unremarkable melodic death metal that, while not horrible, certainly isn't something people would ever probably seek out. It's second stage Gothenburg, you know, not totally agonizing lead guitar all the time, but with a bit of rock influence and more 'Heartwork' than 'The Gallery'. It's not bad, but it's nothing I'd really listen to regularly either.

What's there to even say about this? It's just straightforward, relatively modern melodic death metal. Riffs are mostly based on tremolo or strummed palm muting patterns, melodic or chugging alternately. There's the occasional fiery solo and the riffwork is, if not fascinating, good enough for the purposes of the songs. Vocals are a raspy mid-ranged melodeath growl with some sporadic clean singing during the choruses. Drumming is fast and accurate and bass is inaudible. Production is clear and typical for the genre. It was released on Nuclear Blast and it sounds like it.

The closest thing to unique that Night In Gales ever gets to is in the lyrical department, which is admittedly kind of cool and interesting. The subjects are pretty murky and a lot of the lyrics seem to be nothing more than strings of abstract imagery. The most obviously different thing is that there are huge numbers of one-off portmanteaus used throughout the lyrics which help give it a bit of an interesting feel when read, though you can't tell anything as really being different when they're sung. I guess it's a pretty cool set of lyrics to look over that goes for an interesting writing technique that I haven't seen before, but I don't really listen to metal for the lyrics. As just poetry, though, they're readable and interesting enough to warrant a look.

It's just plain melodic death metal apart from the lyrics though. If you like that kind of thing you'll like this, if not you won't. It adheres to pretty much all of the genre conventions and doesn't really have anything to recommend for or against it. I got it for $3 so it's hard to be disappointed, and your copy will probably cost the same, so just grab one.