by Liz Van Horn (@cokezer0hero)
You’re likely familiar with the saying that hardcore music will “rot your brain.” While many musicians over time have fought tirelessly to debunk this belief as a myth, Atlanta’s veteran punk freaks, Nag, have released a third full-length album that treats this warning like an enticing challenge to produce proof. Human Coward Coyote, the band’s first album under Denver-based DIY hardcore label Convulse Records, ensures that both pre-Convulse and newly acquainted listeners recognize that Nag never settles for less than complete ruination.
The evolution of Nag across albums is like the progression of a parasite taking over a host body, and Human Coward Coyote is the perfect soundtrack for the overtaking of the host’s brain. Building on the fuzzy, thrashy, darkwave-influenced sound from their two previous albums, Dead Deer and Repulsion, Nag takes what you think you know about the band and its influences, throws it into an acid vat straight out of a sci-fi film, and keeps it there until out of the vat emerges an album uncategorizable by conventional standards and disgustingly captivating (and covered in glowing green goo, of course). While darkwave as a subgenre tends to create a post-apocalyptic atmosphere, Human Coward Coyote does not quite read that way. It resonates as if you are right in the thick of the apocalypse, disintegrating as time progresses and surrounding infrastructure burns.
The swift, rhythmic riffs and vocals in “Camouflage” are like sirens calling out to the freaky, the disgusting, and the vile, luring you in until you are too far gone to realize or care that there’s no way out. Rotting away, you find yourself completely content with remaining ensnared in the chaos until Nag chews you up and spits you back out. “Q Laz” and “State of Flux” seem to nod to the band’s darkwave roots, with fans of German post-punk outfit DIÄT feeling right at home among choppier, enunciative vocals and disparaging chord progressions. These songs in particular serve as reminders that Nag could successfully go the route of more conventional darkwave if they wanted to, but the band chose instead to use the subgenre as a springboard to create something wonderfully irreplicable.
Human Coward Coyote’s biggest overall strength is its ability to entangle even the most passive listener. The album should not be regarded as Nag’s invitation to witness destruction, but rather their indisputable call to action to embrace and engage in mutually assured destruction. You have to fully commit to the album, not because it is the ideal way to listen, but because Nag gives you no other choice.