Beyond the jarring intensity of Nurse, there is a frightening gravitas which lends their tracks a spiritual heaviness. This feeling imprisons the listener beneath whirling drums and screeching guitars, but this heaviness isn’t borne simply out of playing faster or louder. It is fashioned from a deceptive intricacy which grows like an inexorable disease within their songs. Their new untitled EP amplifies this bacterial violence of previous work while sustaining the bitter darkness which made them such notable arrivals to the Atlanta hardcore scene in 2014.
Nurse is made up of current and former members of Manic, Cheap Art, Dasher, and Slugga, and when you consider the single-minded attack of each of those bands, Nurse as a whole makes more sense. The mechanical precision and the gruesome melancholy which pound through each track are evidence of experienced band members, but the thunderous attack of Slugga and the powerviolence of Cheap Art particularly shine through on the new EP.
Each of these four tracks build upon a unique framework, challenging the skeletal nature of hardcore and pushing tone and structure to the limit with a methodology so natural it feels almost unintentional. “Pressure,” for example, initially feels like a typical ’80s inspired hardcore track, but after the first few bars the guitars break into scattered rhythms more avant-garde than punk. It’s miniscule moments like these that plant seeds of life throughout what might otherwise feel like an impenetrable wall of dread, making the cascading darkness of the album satisfyingly visceral.
The Nurse EP is available now via Scavenger of Death.
Nurse will perform on Friday, June 24 at the Earl in support of Vincas who will be celebrating the release of their new LP. Illegal Drugs and Nag open the show. Doors open at 9 p.m. Admission is $8.
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Bandcamp: nurseatl.bandcamp.com