Review NASTY ‘Heartbreak Criminals’

Nasty, that is Berry, Nash, Paddy and Matthi. The quartet just played a muscle-driven show at Elbriot 2023 in Hamburg and a few days later, the new album ‘Heartbreak Criminals’ will get shipped to the record stores.

‘Heartbreak Criminals’ is the eighth album from the Belgium hardcore outfit and features twelve songs and one intro. Hereby the band doesn’t focus on long and epic songs. Their breakdown hardcore is boiled down to the essence, leading to a running time of 28 minutes. Now, this isn’t excessively long. Still Nasty puts all they have in the tank to this half hour of brutal and groove-driven hardcore.

While the calm but sinister intro prepares for what comes next it is blasting ‘Roses’ which is a lot but not a romantic rose-driven love song. It is a raging hardcore track, and the following ‘Reality Check’ follows the same pattern.

With ‘Total Domination’ and ‘Nobody Cares’, Nasty also has two songs in the list that just get over the one-minute mark. Compared to this brutal tune, the three-minute ‘Kiss from a Rose’ feels almost like little epos, also because of a melodic approach that is hidden under the massive riff assault.

‘Heartbreak Criminals’ is a brutal strike, coming from Nasty that will cement the band’s role in European hardcore.