Formed in 2013 in Los Angeles, the talented band from Berlin Night Nail comes to the spotlight with March to Autumn, their new album. The darkwave band is not new to this game as they have released a few singles, an eponymous EP and a previous album entitled LA Demons. Released on the 15th of October of 2020, March to Autumn is available in digital format, CD and vinyl. The album has been mixed and mastered by Pete Burns (Kill Shelter) in Edinburg and released by Cold Transmission.
With this second album, Night Nail offers eight tracks full of nostalgia and poetry, an inward trip where the music and its colors spread like drops of ink on a paper full of water. The voice, the chorus, the guitars and keyboards, all the sounds and notes are encircled with a vaporous and full of reverb aura. Riffs and melodies mix together in a sudden shimmer of colors rushed by incisive rhythmic parts.
March to Autumn is a fine mixture of musical genres such as darkwave, post-punk, gothic rock or new wave. We can recognize some common places like the post-punk rhythm of “FTL,” but everything is cleverly arranged so that no one genre takes precedence over another within the same track or in the album. This quality of writing is reflected in particular in the simple beauty of the melodies as in “Co-Morbid,” but also in the very structure of the songs. Each has its internal variations, whether harmonic, structural or rhythmic, and allows you to discover a different soundscape with each track. The same can be appreciated in the drum parts, even if they are programmed. If the sounds revolve more or less around the same timbres, there is a real search for rhythmic originality or breaks which prevent everything from being resumed to the simple drum machine, without, however, confusing the listener. I am thinking specially in “Helen”.
To recap, March to Autumn possesses all the ingredients to seduce a wider audience with its beautiful atmosphere, ingredients, excellent writing quality, magnificent melodies and mesmerizing vocals (lead and backing vocals). That’s why we highly recommend Night Nail’s new album.
