USA Nails returns with new ablum ‘routine flesh’
London noise-rock quartet USA Nails return with new album ‘Routine Flesh’, out February 12th 2027 via One Little Independent Records and SKiN GRAFT Records in North and South America.
Across twelve tracks, ‘Routine Flesh’ is preoccupied with mortality and the things that shape us: the bodies we inherit and watch deteriorate, the beliefs we absorb, the environments we grow up in, and the experiences that leave marks long after they have happened. Ageing, religion, healthcare, trauma, isolation, love and online radicalisation all feed into a record that asks how much control we really have over the people we become.
Musically, ‘Routine Flesh’ pushes at the edges of a sound USA Nails have spent more than a decade pulling apart and putting back together. Distorted bass, dissonant guitars, barked and deadpan vocals and pounding rhythms remain at its core, but across the album the band stretch that vocabulary in increasingly unexpected directions. There are moments of motorik repetition, blown-out fuzz, and wiry post-punk, alongside some of their most direct and unexpectedly tender material.
The album opens with ‘The Lubricant Of Self Hate’, a short, bombastic blast of D-beats and discordant, whistling guitars. Steven Hodson explains; “Lyrically the song is an ode to the social isolation that spotty, teenage boys feel. Sat alone, longing for physical touch and becoming more disconnected with the actual world but more connected with evil ideologies.”
It introduces one of the record’s recurring themes: the distance between the person we might believe ourselves to be and the person our surroundings have helped create. Family, geography, peers, politics and increasingly the digital environments people inhabit all exert their influence.
The circumstances in which ‘Routine Flesh’ was made gave those ideas an unusually immediate musical setting. Following ‘Feel Worse’, USA Nails found themselves dissatisfied not with the record itself, but with the process behind it. This time, they decided to remove as much preparation as possible.
The band spent just four days together in summer 2025 with long-time producer Wayne Adams, writing and recording simultaneously. They consciously brought almost no finished material into the studio, with most of the music performed live and individual songs written and recorded from start to finish in three or four hours. Sixteen tracks emerged from the sessions before Steven and Gareth spent the autumn writing and exchanging vocals.
The band have toured extensively across the UK, Europe and US, including tours with Metz and Mclusky, alongside shows with Future Of The Left, Mission Of Burma, No Age, Cocaine Piss, Viagra Boys, Hey Colossus and Unsane.
That DIY history extends beyond the music itself. Out of necessity as much as anything, USA Nails learned to handle much of the design, video, screen-printing and other work surrounding their releases. Drummer Tom Brewins has created music videos for artists including JOHN, Goat and PETBRICK; Gareth Thomas has made videos for Enablers and appeared as a session guitarist with Los Bitchos; while Daniel Holloway creates artwork and merchandise for bands including Pile and Big Lad.
