A Dry and Thirsty Land by NMDS_HxC | Review

NMDS (formerly named NMDS_HxC) is one of my favorite artists to emerge this year! The group formed in August 2025, after Daniel Maldonado of Clear Convictions and Danny Thomas, formerly of No Treaty, met in person at Audiofeed in Urbana, Illinois, following a year and a half of admiring each other's work from a distance. Clear Convictions has played Spirit-filled hardcore since 1999, and with NMDS it spills over in an exciting way. NMDS’ new release, A Dry and Thirsty Land, combines all the right elements for a powerful and exciting hardcore record, and it has become one of my favorite releases of the year so far.

"Declaration" opens with a voice reading David's prayer from 1 Chronicles 29: "For we are strangers and sojourners before you, just as our fathers were." The band answers with one shouted word, NOMADS, then spends 85 seconds building a war chant out of Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 4. The riffs come out harsh and gritty, with enough groove underneath to stay lodged in your head long after the track cuts out. Few openers state a band's identity this plainly.

"Faithful & True" shows how much range the band can pack into under three minutes. Melodic waves roll over intense hardcore riffs and breakdowns while the vocals trade between three distinct styles that lock together remarkably well: near-clean singing, screeching growls, and unified gang chants. The pumped-up drive taps into a skate punk background, yet the formidable weight of hardcore never lets up. Lyrically, the song is a doxology drawn from Revelation: "Holy is the Lion, worthy is the Lamb, Lord, we cry out maranatha." Near the end, NMDS slows into something closer to a worship session built on classic hard rock elements, proof this band can do more than cut-and-dry hardcore.

"At All Costs" and "Liberty & Death" keep the pressure on. The first runs on nonstop, frantic urgency and carries the album's thesis: "What kind of love would it be if I affirm 'your truth' against reality?" "Liberty & Death" adds a solid thrash streak from the old crossover tradition and turns Patrick Henry inside out. Freedom comes one way here, through "death to the flesh," with Isaiah's burning coal pressed to the lips. Paired with the Bunker Hill command to wait for "the whites of their eyes" in "At All Costs," NMDS borrows the language of the American Revolution and aims it at a war fought inside every Christian instead.

"Not Our Home" leans further into thrash and gives the album its title: "I am a sojourner in dry and thirsty land." The phrase comes from Psalm 63, which David wrote in the wilderness of Judah. When the breakdown hits and the band chants its own name, the moment is incredibly fun, and the chant doubles as the record's most straightforward statement of belief. Nomads have no home here. "I'd rather be a dead man walking than another one just walking dead" might be the best line on the album.

"Sheep Among Wolves" stands as the strongest song on this album for me. Everything that made "Declaration" work gets funneled into a perfect hardcore anthem against the deceivers of this world, war chant and all. The track is melodic and gritty at once, fun and cutting at once, and its opening confession keeps the aggression humble: "Left to myself, I am prone to stray." Christ's charge in Matthew 10 to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves becomes a plea to see "the wolves that are in disguise." Few songs this year showcase what makes a band compelling and exciting as clearly as this one.

Then "A Song of Sang" shifts the ground. Sang is French for blood, and the closer is an intense slow burn, heavy waves of slower breakdowns rolling between softer, distorted guitar sweeps. The composition is impressive, and the experiment shows NMDS willing to reach past the sound they spent six tracks perfecting. The lyrics answer last year's headlines, where a man who handed his critics the microphone was shot mid-conversation, and too many cheered. NMDS reach for Barabbas to name that crowd, and the music builds the full weight of that moment in history. Even so, the song stands on Philippians 1:21: "If to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Darkness is worth something when it stands in tension with light, and A Dry and Thirsty Land lives inside that tension. The world these songs describe is parched and quick to cheer for blood. NMDS doesn’t pretend otherwise. They keep walking through it, chanting, like pilgrims who know exactly where home is. Excellent, excellent, dare I say, most excellent record. It will be awesome to see where NMDS journeys next from here.