Blood & Gold |Play It Again Sam Records, 1995| 
1. Blood, 2. Rain, 3. My Mind, 4. Dirt, 5. Sane Men, 6. Gaia, 7. The Carpet Man, 8. Scream In Silence, 9. Exposure, 10. Discouragement, 11. Nihil, 12. Gold
To be sincere with you, I found
Blood & Gold too heavy when I first heard a few years ago. This album grew on me a lot after some time passed by, and I’m definitely convinced of its value, clarity, vibrant sound and timelessness.
Blood & Gold spreads a similar charm contingent to most of the music created by
Machines of Loving Grace and Course of Empire. It’s the same kind of temptation, depth, perfection of arrangements, richness of song construction and integrity to all of its elements.
Nerve was one of those lesser known Belgian bands back then in the 90’s, which released only two full albums put out by Play It Again Sam Records. It can be questionable of why they didn’t become as big as Ministry on the industrial metal scene since PIAS had very good distribution then, and albums of their bands were available the world over (thanks to SPV in Poland, however I can’t remember if Nerve albums were available in their catalog). That band still stands as an undiscovered jewel, or rather the jewel discovered by true heavy music fans only; opened to deepen their knowledge, instead of following bands which got more far reaching recognition in the USA like Ministry or
Nine Inch Nails.
What’s most interesting is that Nerve’s music was made by only two people: Phil Mills and Tom Holkenborg. Tom set up his new project after quitting Nerve, which you may have heard about before - Junkie XL, and which became far more successfully known for its electronic sounds.
The album begins with a heavy, Godflesh-like song called "Blood" interlaced with brighter sound spots here and there. Then there’s one cult song by the band - "Rain"! It gives me such a mental image while listening to the song: imagine a Viking-like guy (one of those heavy armored, full of thorns, black riders from the movie Pathfinder) riding on a running black horse through open fields to crush all enemies with their weight, speed and power. "Rain" crushes the same way.
The next song is "My Mind" with the final guitar+bass+drums unison reminiscent of music by
Skrew. This track includes catchy elements and rock refrains. Then "Dirt" is a foretaste of the sound brought by Junkie XL a few years later with techno-like beats similar to
Cubanate, Front 242 and C-Tec, but is surrounded by a cloud of beautiful, vibrating guitar riffs and aggressive vocals.
"Sane Men" is a simple song, that would be great to be played live when it comes to energy flow and headbanging. It’s dynamic rock mixed with an electronic, almost techno background, accented in a few spots but not disturbing the rest of it. "Gaia" follows "Sane Man", and is one of the most recognizable songs by Nerve, with a chorus easy to remember that almost forces you to sing it out loud. That song reminds me of works by Machines of Loving Grace from their album "Gift" the most.
"The Carpet Man" is a powerful industrial metal song, which falls like an avalanche. A striking voltage of song content, from guitars and bass though vocals, then to an industrial background that makes a deep impact. It should be interesting to
Revolting Cocks or Front 242 fans that Luc Van Acker was a guest musician on the recording of that song.
"Scream In Silence" will tear apart the toughest person. It will sink its teeth into your psyche then blow it out from the inside. Positively. It’s a stunning suite, almost without vocals (except of the title refrain "I can scream in silence"). In its appearance just right after dehumanized, "The Carpet Man" makes the contrast larger, and even people with no special sense of hearing should notice it immediately. Similar power was presented in "Discouragement", with charging guitar riffs and an atmosphere of late
Ministry (like in "Kaif") with similar sounding sampled dialogs. This song however turns to some wimpy singing what destroys the final effect to me. It’s not a well worked out composition for sure. From wimpy singing, the song "Exposure" begins as well, but it evolves into heavy guitars, dynamic drums and a wall of industrial rock tunes we love so much!
Other than that "Nihil" is an industrial song with weird sounds, however it's not limited to electronic content only. The latter part of the song gets warmed up with furious vocals and a mixture of beats, though the song doesn't have any significant depth, it depends on how you want to interpret it. "Gold" makes your heartbeat cool down and finishes the album.
The
Blood & Gold album was recorded in the fashion of mid-90’s metal and industrial top trends, but it didn’t get as much of response as deserved. There are guitars co-existing with electronics like yin and yang in Nerve’s music. Additionally Phil Mills utilizes amazing sounds when he sings in both ‘angry’ and powerful ways, but at the same time he doesn’t seem comfortable with light choirs. The power of
Blood & Gold kills the bad taste of terrible new electro-metal productions from Germany and Italy as well as American remixes. I’m giving this album a very high and deserved rating.
(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz, Fabryka Magazine, April 23rd, 2010. Proofreading: Scott M. Owens. Must not be used for promotional or commercial purposes. See a Legal Note for the copyrights below)
Cancer Of Choice |Play It Again Sam Records, 1994| 
1. Coins, 2. Fragments, 3. Oil, 4. Rage, 5. Closedown, 6. Water, 7. Seed, 8. Dedalus, 9. Trust, 10. Waters, 11. Thirties
Nerve's debut album unfortunately isn't the twin masterpiece of "Blood & Gold" released a year later, and it doesn’t represent ideas from that time either. However, it’s not that bad at all.
The problem is that
Cancer Of Choice includes a lot of changing moods, beats, industrial backgrounds and sound experiments. Being aware of the impact "Blood & Gold" had on me, I can theorize that the band was looking for a method to create interesting music and finally chose guitars instead of samplers for the next album. Moreover, there are several influences of other bands and music styles on
Cancer of Choice.
This album could have been made eventually, and gone over better if Nerve had released 4-5 albums before this one. "
Cancer of Choice could have been located somewhere at the end of their discography as a compilation CD, bringing it into the limelight of past Nerve achievements. Other than that, this album is their debut and in its variety may point to either a searching process (to find the right sound and proper fans), or representation of experience with other music styles in which the band tried to include on the album marginalizing the final result.
Nerve was lucky to draw attention by the Play It Again Sam record label based in Belgium; known of headhunting for original sounds and artists, both guitar and electronic orientated. PIAS has had wide distribution channels in both Europe and the USA, so I’m surprised seeing that Nerve culminated into an insufficient career under such big label wings. I can speculate though either PIAS paid attention to the band because of this debut experimental album, or perhaps there weren’t enough units sold at the time, so the band figured they should turn to the metal scene and choose heavier tunes to grab a bigger audience.
This mindset eventually may not have been approved by PIAS and resulted in a discontinuance of cooperation. The real reasons are surely only known to the band members, and either Phil Mills or Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL now) can be asked about the details of the deal with PIAS (which we may eventually do in some future interview with Fabryka).
An experimental but still heavy electronica based song called "Coins" opens the album. Then we get an almost ambient-pop-metal song called "Fragments", followed with the heavy industrial metal of "Oil" and rap industrial of "Rage". On the other hand, "Closedown" reminds me "The Young Gods" style of music; filled with electronics and those typical, full of tension and aggression atmospheres as well. "Water" may make 16volt fans interested who like their sweeter, but still guitar driven songs. This track is however 5 minutes long, with arrangements that don’t vary much and brings boredom quickly to the listener.
I was surprised by "Seed" because after its flat content the other half of the song is filled with tight, predatory, yet danceable beats. Reminiscent of music by Front 242 and
Cubanate. "Dedalus" didn’t satisfy me because it just sounds too standard, but the following instrumental song "Trust" exposed me to its power at once! Slow guitar riffs with ‘crying’ solos similar to songs by
Skrew, but the heavy composition lightens up when the song enters into some higher tones towards the end. "Waters" continues the beauty of "Trust" in a way, but it sounds like a forerunner of "Screaming in Silence" (on Blood & Gold album) in case the band wasn’t satisfied enough with "Waters" then decided to go deeper and clearer recording "Screaming in Silence" for the last album. You may find some echoes of "Something I Can Never Have" by Nine Inch Nails in that song as well.
The album finishes with "Thirties" which actually didn’t interest me at all after knowing the perfection of
Blood & Gold. I wouldn’t have thought the band had done such things earlier in their career.
There’s only a two gear rating on this album for a lack of self confidence in making arrangements. On the other hand, it’s worthwhile to have it to compare and illustrate the way the band evolved towards its last and best album.
(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz, Fabryka Magazine, April 23rd, 2010. Proofreading: Scott M. Owens. Must not be used for promotional or commercial purposes. See a Legal Note for the copyrights below)
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