Nuclear Assault - Pounder EP (2015)

Had Pounder been released somewhere between 1985-87 as a filler EP between Nuclear Assault full-lengths, it might have made a little splash as eager thrash fans snapped it up off the shelves when this New York legend's iron was still pretty hot. As it stands, the material contained here, being produced so long after the band's prime, with intervening decades of nothing worthwhile happening whatsoever, no good records, seems insipid at best. That's not to knock it completely, because the four tunes here sound intrinsically like the Nukes you remember as a teen (or I remember as a teen), but it feels like too little too late and I were to randomly cast an audio dart at any track off the full-lengths, excluding the itty bitty goofy ones, I would wind up stabbing something much more memorable. Ten years after the most horrific and boring album of their thrashing careers, Third World Genocide, it just doesn't seem like enough.

The band has not moved forward in any meaningful way in terms of progressing its ideas to a modern context, nor is it writing nostalgia that eclipses or even matches the best songs of Survive, Handle With Care, and Game Over... I might say that they at least 'try', but the majority of riffs here just seem like they might have been scraped up off the cutting room floor 20-odd years ago. "Pounder" itself is your typical mid-to-fast paced rager like what the band would often kick off a record with in the past, and "Lies" is your analog for a classic headbanger like "Brainwashed". If I had to pick the best of the cuts, though, it would be the closer "Died in Your Arms", which is this swaggering, burly tune in which the buzz of Lilker's distorted bass lines owns up to the rhythm guitar chords, the leads seem bluesy, sporadic and atmospheric, and it really doesn't feel like much of what they've put out in the past. The mix of the entirely EP is appropriately dirty, definitely straddling the line between the first and second albums, and I kind of dig that...but by the same token, I wouldn't have minded a massive sounding modern Nuclear Assault that just wrote killer hooks that twisted my head off.

Connelly might seem a little aged in his inflection, but I think for the most part he continues to create  that frustrated, constipated anger that made him unique in the 80s. Otherwise, the band sounds pretty much business as usual, had that business been conducted back when it mattered. Again, I can't be too hard on the thing, because at least the tracks here aren't as miserable as the 2005 album, and they do feature a nice balance of tempos sort of like The Plague EP. But this is a band that used to make me want to arm myself with a spiked baseball bat and storm the streets, burning vehicles and beating up Cold War mutants, and there's just nothing kinetic or memorable enough here to invoke that same delinquency from my inner thrasher. The best this is, is 'non-bad', and I guess that's a start, but one that they'll have to capitalize on by reaching into themselves and pulling out that rage, those nights of dirty clubs and cigarettes, the political unrest their music used to address. Pounder tells me that it is a possibility, but doesn't justify its existence to me beyond that simple tease.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

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Nuclear Assault - Atomic Waste: Demos & Rehearsals (2012)

The storied career of a thrash titan like Nuclear Assault might naturally have lent itself to dozens of cash-in compilations or other mandatory corporate wetwork upon the fans, but let's give some credit that they've been relatively mum on this sort of release throughout their career. There was a 'greatest hits' type of package in the late 90s, and I believe there were some self-released demos, but High Roller records and the Nukes have put together quite a comprehensive package for Atomic Waste, and one that is well-suited to the long term fan who wants the band's legacy treated with some measure of respect. The caveat is that, even though many will no doubt prefer the acquisition of its vinyl version, the CD is actually the better deal, with a lot more tracks (10 in fact) and some material you're very unlikely to have heard...

Atomic Waste kicks off with the band's 1984-85 demos presented in reverse order, the latter of which sounds a lot better than the first, since it actually boasts a decent studio production and the tunes do not sound entirely different than their later incarnations on the full-lengths and EPs. On the other hand, I cannot so much vouch for the '84 tape, simply because the sound has decayed and it interferes with appreciation of the very uncouth, wild approach to vocals being taken there, or the frenetic tendencies of the noodling leads. More or less what you'd expect if resurrecting a thrash band's old demo tape from the early 80s and then transferring its flaws to a digital medium, something I've attempted to do in the past to a sound card and then given up on (since other people re-released them in superior format). That said, there's a sordid authenticity that diehards of misanthropic crossover/thrash violence and primitive recordings would sing praises for, and in the name of completeness, I'm glad to have both the demos in one location.

The aforementioned added tracks are a collection of instrumental rehearsals which benefit from a decent, if raw production standard. The guitars are a little bulky and crunchy and possibly even mildly out of tune in a few sequences, but hell if you wanted to karaoke "Brainwashed" in as vulgar a manner as possibly, why the fuck not use this one as your background music? Sure to scatter the poseurs in multiple directions. Same could be said of "Survive", "Technology" or "Rise from the Ashes", but of particular interest to me about this bonus material was the inclusion of a trio of unreleased tunes which are admittedly quite solid and would not have done a disservice to the Game Over or Survive era if they'd been flesh out with lyrics and better leads (the 1st and 3rd of these cuts are pretty sweet). Like the other, better known cuts, the guitars are raw but viable, the drums potent and really all that's missing is the grating anguish of John Connelly.

Atomic Waste is not going to win the band any new fans, of course, and in every case, the later recordings of this roster of tunes (where they appear) are superior, so there's a dearth of value if you're seeking out rare vocal gems, a covers album or other such compilations. This is really meant specifically for the completist, and to that extent it's not a disappointment. Perhaps a bonus disc compiling their singles might have made for a better bargain, but as it stands this is solid enough for what it represents. My only hope is that Nuclear Assault will listen back through this material themselves, reexamine their gifts as songwriters from the 85-89 period and reembark on a tour of asskicking that will help me flush that execrable comeback Third World Genocide from my guts forever.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

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Nuclear Assault - Third World Genocide (2005)

It says a lot to me that, even at its very best, Third World Genocide is capable of evoking little more than nostalgia for other songs that came before it, and not only those of the Nuclear Assault canon, but others from the 80s. For instance, "Price of Freedom" has a chorus bit that sounds eerily reminiscent of Lääz Rockit's "Leatherface". It says even more, that even with bassist Dan Lilker back in the fold, dragging Brutal Truth guitarist Erik Burke along to fill the vacant guitar chair of Anthony Bramante (who appears only on "Glenn's Song" at the end), these guys managed to whip up one of the hands down worst 'comeback' albums of the 21st century to date, not because it's totally out of character or style as an attempt to return towards the group's 80s hardcore/punk-laced aesthetics, but because the songwriting flat out sucks. The riffs on this thing might not have even been good enough as demo fare before the guys got a record deal. It's nearly 100% cutting room floor pap that makes me frustrated to just think of it, uninspired to the point that it would even make me pine for their less than ideal 90s records Out of Order and Something Wicked...

When the band aren't fucking off with a TERRIBLE punk joke song like "Whine and Cheese", a requisite, brief grinder like "The Hockey Song", or covering a countrified John Connelly Theory tune (why?) in "Long Haired Asshole", none of which are even remotely funny, they are meting out the most generic riffing patterns in their whole history. These guys must not have spent more than five minutes writing a single track here. 'Guys, does this riff sound like thrash?' 'Uh...I think so?' 'Okay, rolling tape.' The lyric patterns seem like afterthoughts squeezed onto trifle guitar progressions that evoke absolutely none of the pavement cracking filth of the past. Tunes like "Third World Genocide" and "Exoskeletal" are little more than dime a dozen whiff thrash, which at best offer you a burning lead. Occasionally there will be a busier pattern, like in "Human Wreckage" where the group guns for something more involved and ambitious, but even these come up dry due to the stale sounding production permeating the entire effort. The reformed New Yorkers had moved over to the Screaming Ferret Wreckords roster (a local New England label from New Hampshire), so one could not have expected high budget wizardry, but this still comes up shy of any prior full-length.

Lilker is perhaps the only consistent positive on this album, but he had little to work with. Still, his buzzing and thumping bass lines seem as driven as we remember them, and to be fair the lead sequences are often pretty explosive too. The saddest fact is that, aesthetically, Third World Genocide is quite close to the first pair of albums in terms of the riff structures. Gone are the more accessible overtures of Something Wicked. This is pure regression, but it forgets to drag with it those songwriting chops that put the band on the map to begin with. This is not The Antichrist, with a veteran squad (like Destruction) finding such renewed vigor and purpose that it manages to trump itself. Rather, it's about the same level of quality one might expect of a random, drunken rehearsal session in 1987 when the band hit record on their tape deck and decided to spontaneously create songs, then scrap them the next morning for a lack of hooks. The material on this album is structured, with clearly defined verses, choruses, and tempo change ups, but its wholly unimpressive, even at its 'high point': "Glenns Song", with the "Critical Mass" like bass rhythm, dull chugging bounce riffs, weak as shit, barely audible verse vocals that somehow transition into one or two screaming moments of actual value. Conveniently tucked away at the end...

Hell, even the lyrics seem uninspired. One might think these guys would drop some wisdom on us after all their time in the industry, but it's the usual thrash anthems against racism and dictatorship that the band, and many others like them, had already trampled in the past. Not that I'd mind these subjects if they were gifted with a decent chorus sequence that made my fists fly as in the old days, but such is nowhere to be found on Third World Genocide, a complete dud which even makes the worst output of fellow East Coasters like Anthrax and Overkill in the 90s/00s shine by comparison. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go back to pretending this doesn't exist.

Verdict: Fail [3.25/10] (and their families starved)

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Nuclear Assault - Something Wicked (1993)

My first recollection of Something Wicked was that John Connelly had joined Megadeth in the 90s, because certain songs here reminded me of Mustaine's writing for tracks like "Symphony of Destruction" off of Countdown to Extinction, or perhaps something from Youthanasia. A painfully simplistic, chugging riff leads into an escalating lattice of melody, primed for easy radio accessibility, and somehow lacking that dystopic nuclear fervor that made me such a fan of their first three albums. As one progresses through this record, the motif seems to hold up, and it feels about as different an experience from Nuclear Assault as John's side project John Connelly Theory which put out an album in 1991. Sure, his vocal inflection binds the groups together, but if not for his presence, and the logo on the awful cover to this record, I wouldn't have even known it was a Nukes release.

Ironically, it's his vocals that prove one of the saving graces for this album, keeping it from plunging fully over the precipice to utter suck. He adds a little more rock and roll spice to his formula, while keeping that raw, urban harshness that defined the earlier works. Almost like an East Coast Chuck Billy, with a few traces of former Whiplash singer Glenn Hansen (in fact, Something Wicked does occasionally remind me of their 1989 LP Insult to Injury). He even pulls off the moodier pieces like "The Forge", with dire, bluesy acoustic guitars, or "No Time", the sorta power ballad in which he pulls off some of his most refined melodies ever. In fact, this album has more clean guitars than any other in their catalog, a sign they were striving for that added mainstream penetration, that late breakthrough they never quite reached in the prior decade. Unfortunately, the brighter points to Something Wicked are counterbalanced by one of the most mundane riffing selections you'd find anywhere: nothing offensive or lacking in variation, but pitifully average at a time when the genre had been largely reduced to just its most ardent supporters, and the dustbin.

I realize there's a more horror spin to the lyrics here, what with the Ray Bradbury inspiration to the title/title track and the Twilight Zone-themed cut "To Serve Man" (both cool topics in my estimation). The Cold War had receded, the street fighting mutant clobbering Damnation Alley aesthetics of the past records probably seemed moot. There were also two new members in the fold: David DiPietro of Jersey might-have-beens TT Quick replaces Bramante, and bassist Scott Metaxas has some huge shoes to fill with Dan Lilker having gone off to focus on grind superstars Brutal Truth. The former's flashier guitars are certainly felt through the album with the added licks and leads that burst out through pieces like "Another Violent End", while the latter just doesn't have those same, pulverizing rhythmic chops that his predecessor brought to the band. Neither is incompetent, but certainly their performance here contributes to the album's clear separation from their prior outings, and when they've only got such generally simplistic, chugging post S.O.D./M.O.D. riffs to work through, what could we really expect?

Reinvention I can handle, but not at the cost of that vital, youthful energy the band thrived upon through the 80s. Tunes like "Something Wicked", "Madness Descends" and "Chaos" are capable of getting the head banging for a few seconds, until one realized that nothing surprising or memorable is coming down the pipe. So many of the guitar progressions and lead sequences remind me of something Dave Mustaine would have written around this time that it's almost a distraction. They've also brought back a few of the useless ditties that plagued older albums, with the 9 second "Art" and a 40 second acoustic variation of "Another Violent End" called "The Other End". Only a few tunes like "Poetic Justice" (pre-profanity bridge) are ultimately able to conjure up that violent momentum of a Game Over or Survive, and while Connelly and Evans each deliver a decent performance, I found the album a sliver less impressive than Out of Order, which was already a letdown for many of the band's fans.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10] (draw the lightning out of my mind)

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Nuclear Assault - Alive Again (2003)

To this day, barring bootleg recordings which I might or might more not have any recollection for, Nuclear Assault have yet to produce a really great live record worth owning. The videos are alright, and certainly their gigs have been cool when I've attended them, but the sound they achieve on these discs sounds a little cluttered and lacks the ability to deliver some of the nuance they actually had in the studio. Not that this was ever a subtle band, mind you; more of a locomotive to the face, but I still like to hear all the instruments clearly. I had stated on the earlier live album review that they played a lot of reformation gigs here in New England, and this was partly due to the devotion of a local thrasher named Eric Paone (of veteran act CSDO) who loved the band so much he helped set them up some gigs and even filled in on bass for a few. I mention this only because Alive Again was recorded right here in Massachusetts, in spring of 2002, to a fairly enthusiastic crowd.

It doesn't sound a whole lot greater than Live at the Hammersmith Odeon, but that ruptured tone of the guitar seems a little smoother, and you can hear the bass vibrating off here like a radiation warning sounding off in some overheated nuclear facility. Connelly has a lot more piercing pitch here than I was used to, but this is likely due to the natural aging of his throat, so I've got no real problems with his performance. The drums are also on the level, but then they were not one of the issues I took with the last live. At any rate, I would say that Alive Again has a more 'dry' feel to it with the guitars better blended into a single bludgeon, less saturated and disheveled by the mix. Almost like the equipment used might have been more primitive, but the results balanced so that they don't annoy the ear; that said, this is hardly a gem in of itself, and I could rattle off 50 or 60 thrash/speed metal lives in short order that would be infinitely preferable.

When it comes to the set choices, though, this record blows away the Hammersmith. The only bullshit short comes at the end with "Hang the Pope", and the one actual song choice here I don't care for is "Butt Fuck", two words that might have once been shocking and rebellious in the 80s but are now just a few clicks away on anyone's weekday porn search. Every damn song, however, is taken from the first three albums, when the band actually really mattered, and you are at long last treated to great numbers like "Brainwashed", "F#" and "Radiation Sickness" which were suspiciously absent from the previous live album. "Trail of Tears", "New Song", "Critical Mass", all of those tunes you used to gnash your teeth and mash your head are present and unleashed with a fury, by the same lineup that fucking recorded them! How about that?

In the end, if you absolutely MUST purchase a Nuclear Assault gig in pure audio format, then you are not presented with the best of options. But Alive Again is the better of the two official ones. Personally I'd say to try and hunt down some of the videos like the European tour in '89, but those are probably even harder to track down than this. Not a standout thrash live, but far worthier of the brand than its predecessor.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

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Nuclear Assault - Live at the Hammersmith Odeon (1992)

Live at the Hammersmith Odeon is one of those 'late to the party' live efforts which was released at a point where it was incapable of making its maximum impact on the band's following. Recorded in 1989, at a gig the band played in England with other greats like Dark Angel and Candlemass, it features a group on the verge of releasing their most successful effort (Handle With Care), playing for one of their most supportive international audiences. It was also put out by a number of the band's affiliates (Relativity, I.R.S. and Roadrunner/Roadracer) so clearly there was some push to sell the thing. Unfortunately, Live at the Hammersmith Odeon was not about to impress anyone, because it sounds like shit.

Or, more specifically, the guitar tone sounds like ass, enough that it completely crippled the experience for me. Now, I've seen the band live on several occasions, since the Northeast US was a hot spot for their gigs and they had an avid following (New York and New England, specifically), and whilst I can't claim that they lit me on fire with envy at their performances, they certainly sounded superior to what we have here.The guitar tone just feels too loud and crunchy, as if its always about to cut out, and sometimes the notes feel as if they're being warped. Not to mention that the balance between Connelly and Evans is just ugly, with lots of annoying squeals and other bullshit. The rhythm section is fine, you can't make out every nuance in Lilker's playing as well as you might like, but Evans at least sounds clear. As for the vocals, they're good enough at conveying the inflection on the records, but lose a bit of their luster. It's the 'crunch' that truly pisses me off, making the tunes that were new here (like "Critical Mass") sound like the unpolished crud that hangs from the lips of a public toilet.

Doesn't help that the band also included a sort of 'medley' of their lame, brief grind tunes here. Yes, tracks 9-13 concern every trifle the band ever thought was funny or clever, and while 1% of the audience might have found it amusing in their rabid devotion to the New Yorkers, it seems like a throwaway opportunity. "Mother's Day", "My America", "Lesbians", "Hang the Pope" and the stupid "Funky Noise" should all have been lifted from the set and replaced with "Brain Death" or "The Plague". Or, for fuck's sake, how about "Brainwashed"? It's nowhere to be found here. Too much emphasis on Handle With Care. "New Song", "Critical Mass", "Torture Tactics", "Trail of Tears", none of which sound up to snuff. Why include "Butt Fuck"? Or "Good Times, Bad Times" when you've got some searing originals to foist upon the blokes across the pond who've been waiting for your gigs. They do include "Survive", "Nightmares", and "Game Over" but that's not enough to save this unbalanced set from the swill.

To me, this just reeks of capitalizing on the logo of a pretty popular thrash act, otherwise it might have been more confidently issued shortly after the gig, like their European tour video a few years prior. The set's no good, the songs sound a little ruddy, so all Nuclear Assault are able to impart here is their presence and discernible level of energy. Do not waste your own tracking this down.

Verdict: Fail [3.5/10]

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Nuclear Assault - Out of Order (1991)

If we were to chart the histories of most 80s thrash giants, whether in the first, financially-sound-to-this-date tier or the plane just below that upon which groups were able to get out there internationally and create a following that put them just out of reach of becoming a 'household name', then we'd no doubt pinpoint a specific breaking point at which each either altered its style dramatically in the new decade, or just plain old started to suck. For New York's Nuclear Assault, it was their fourth album, Out of Order, upon which many lay the blame of shark jumping. Even the title itself seems to imply some sort of dramatic disjunction for the band, though in reality it's a sociopolitical overview like that of the previous full-length.

I'd like to say that this album is in no way the aesthetic failure some seem to claim, but instead a sensible evolution for the band's sound moving forward into the 90s. That's not to say it's a great work, or even a good one. There are a number of flaws throughout that deign it unfit to even share the same restaurant table with the first three, but this is far from a Load or Diabolus in Musica in terms of its 'disappointment factor'. It's simply a case on which the good ideas don't outweigh the uninspired songwriting, the riffing and chorus sequences don't stir up the same frenzy as they did on Survive. Beyond that, this was coming at the tail end of a troublesome period for Nuclear Assault. Their hectic schedule in the later 80s seemed to wear upon the band's focus, and apparently the rewards for their work weren't hitting expected goals (they even seem to make fun of this in the lyrics to "Sign in Blood"). They never quite 'broke through' that Headbanger's Ball barrier to a level commeasurate to the 'Big Four', and really, thrash was starting to fold all around, its prime movers looking towards their own ass-saving (and ultimately lame) mutations in a changing landscape of popular music.

Much of the recording process for Out of Order was placed upon the shoulders of the rhythm section, Glenn Evans and Dan Lilker. Connelly and Bramante were still involved, but in particular the latter seemed to have a reduced role in its conception. As such, the vocals here just aren't anything special. He's still howling at the same pitch, and applying some melody to that natural, raw edge in his voice, but the chorus parts seem never to reach an appropriately memorable climax, and at best they often felt like reiterations of patterns the band had already used on earlier works. It also seems like they put a little extra reverb on the guy, so he does come off a little more separate from the riffing. There are a number of gang shouts and samples that come off mildly dated and corny, but probably the greatest offense is on the Sweet cover "Ballroom Blitz", which is just fucking stupid. As with actress Tia Carrere in the Wayne's World film, they should have just let this one rest, because it adds nothing on the original and sounds like the band are just fucking around (even weaker than their Led Zeppelin cover, in my opinion).

But most of the originals aren't nearly that whack. I noticed a more prevalent use of more clinical thrashing mechanics in several of the songs, almost like they were done clubbing the audience with the baseball bat of their previous albums and instead wanted to see what a scalpel would do. Several of the grooves in opener "Sign in Blood" remind me a lot of the West Coast Excel, for example, while songs like "Quocustodiat" and "Hypocrisy", two of the best here, almost had a Teutonic/Bay Area intensity to them. They also experiment with the vocals a lot more, the other members contributing lower pitched barks and even full lines of lyrics in a more blunt, hardcore timbre. Hell, in "Resurrection" they try their tongues at a few guttural death metal vocal lines, which might seem somewhat of a novelty if there weren't already full death/thrash hybrids starting to put out records around this time.

Conspicuously absent are the little grind clips the band tinkered with in the past. No complaints here, though the band do seem to have shifted their lighter sides to some of the full length tracks, like "Save the Planet" in which they experiment with everything from atmospheric, Spanish speed-picking/classical clean guitars or the jamming prog synth freakout solo near the close. I already mentioned the cover song, which is crappy, but a few of the earlier tunes like "Preaching to the Deaf" with its few lamentably generic riffs, or "Too Young to Die", which unfortunately muddies up a decent guitar progression or two with some of Connelly's worst vocals to its day, and some unnecessary acoustic guitars, leave much to be desired. If they'd cut off about 4-5 of these songs and then refined the rest, Out or Order would have been in far better shape.

Despite its missteps, though, this still felt like a step forward in stylistic direction for the Nukes. Particularly if they had sought a more technical sound altogether, keeping the same vocal style and hardcore undercurrent, like an angrier Crumbsuckers, there could have been something interesting to come out of all this. Instead, at its very best, Out of Order is just another average thrash effort with a few moments of promised intensity that don't really pan out. It's not an awful record, and such reports seem not a little exaggerated, but the fact that they seem to hide the experimentation later in the track list, doesn't reek of confidence. That said, the bass playing is pretty good here (Dan's last album with them for over a decade), and I don't have much of an issue with the production. It seemed like a speed bump that the band could overcome with a little added focus, and its not nearly so creatively bankrupt as their flaccid and pathetic 'comeback' album in 2005.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (relinquish control)

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Nuclear Assault - Handle With Care (1989)

Handle With Care was about the time Nuclear Assault broke out from the underground to that tier of bands primed to be the next big thing (along with Testament, Death Angel, Forbidden, Exodus, Suicidal Tendencies and so forth). They had transferred over to the newly established In-Effect records alongside several of their New York contemporaries, and this was a huge album for both that imprint and the band, charting about 20 slots higher than Survive, and to date, probably their highest selling. They had gone from buzzed about to fawned over, and had solid video support for songs like "Trail of Tears" and "Critical Mass", the latter of which featured 80s scandal 'starlet' Jessica Hahn reclining seductively in a chair while the band thrashed about her in an oil field, occasionally flashing over to shots of landfill heaps. Hey, it WAS still the 80s...

I've heard people speak of this as the 'sellout' album, or the official shark jumping, but frankly I find such a notion delusional at best. If anything, Handle With Care was a more seasoned, mature, offering that missed the memo where they tell you such a transition is suppose to be accompanied by softer tunes and sterile studio production. Nah, this is just as rambunctious as Survive, permeated with hair flailing grooves and flooded, caustic bass lines which up their distorted tone to the breaking point. The lineup had remained the same for years, so they were playing tighter than ever, and if Handle With Care could be considered the 'best' at anything, it would be its staunch sense of pacing. The tunes here flow in and out of one another as if they were borne off a brilliant blueprint for thrashing, crashing and setting a mood, and I'd at least hold up the first four cuts (and three of the final four) cuts on the record among the best they've ever set to tape. In fact, it's not really a surprise that the album was so successful, because on a tune for tune basis, there are arguably more 'catchy' chorus sequences here than on either of the earlier full-lengths...

But it wouldn't be a Nuclear Assault record of the 80s without a number of stupid little vignettes that had no rhyme or reason to the remainder of the track list. One of these, "Funky Noise" is a splendidly retarded :50 second burst of funky guitars and horns, serving no purpose whatsoever except maybe to remind us that the band's got a 'lighter side'. That they're class clowns. Or that they're setting us up for Sacred Reich's abominable "31 Flavors" off The American Way ('don't just be a metal dude!', yeah, thanks, Einstein). The other is the :30 second "Mother's Day", a high velocity grinder in the tradition of "Hang the Pope". This one's certainly got the riffs to it, and the vocal patterns, while goofy and annoying, are curiously structured, but I still don't think it has a place alongside "Trail of Tears", "Search & Seizure", "Inherited Hell" and so forth.

There are also a number of tunes which sound like partial 'also rans' of others the band had already written. For instance, "When Freedom Cries" sports a nice chorus, but the verse rhythms seem predictable and generic even for its day, only slight reconfigurations of others on Game Over, Survive or earlier on this very anthem. "New Song" and "Critical Mass" seem the richest soil for ideas here, with such enormous neck breaking grooves that were bound to get a crowd moving; it's one of the better one two knockout combos you were likely to hear in 1989. "Trail of Tears" also had a great intro rhythm, but the bluesy meandering and clean guitars here seemed to drag on. Not the first usage of such in their career, but here you get just about everything you need to hear in the first 20-30 seconds and then wish they would just stick with the heavier momentum of the pure thrashing patterns. Other, less famous cuts like the bouncing fist baller "Torture Tactics" and the escalating, atmospheric romp "Surgery" are unsung heroes, even if they're not at the level of a "Brainwashed".

Handle With Care was the second album through which Nuclear Assault had worked with producer Randy Burns, and along with the engineers, they do a pretty smash up job of drawing forth that thicker guitar tone they had manifest for Survive. Both the vocals and guitars have a strong sense for melody here, not necessarily new to their sound but showing some signs that at their, core, the New Yorkers were just as concerned with memorable songwriting as raw aggression, and fully capable of balancing the contrasts. As such, many would probably view this as their peak in terms of studio quality, an opinion I cannot disagree with due to the excellent sense of variation and bold, straight to the face tone. But even though this is only a few minutes longer than the first two albums, it somehow feels a bit fatter, and I would have trimmed it down to just the best 8-9 songs and let them speak for themselves, skipping the shorts entirely.

That said, I don't have a lot of other complaints. Lyrically, the messages in the songs tackle fascism, abuse of authority and other prevalent social and political themes which carry weight yet today. I thought the cover was a bummer after the first two albums, and yet it too is the product of a pretty blunt message. I suppose we 'survived', and now Nuclear Assault was more concerned with our environmental awareness. Granted, this impetus conjures images of ex-cons picking trash of a highway more than the radioactivity and street fighting of past works, but at least the music itself maintains the thundering, bass heavy pit savvy the band had built into a science. Sadly, despite its relative success and penetration in the American and English markets, Handle With Care would prove the last of the band's albums of import. Doesn't feel quite so vital as its predecessors, and certainly I don't feel the same level of nostalgia for this, but it's still a great time.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (atomic waste displaced)

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Nuclear Assault - Survive (1988)

One minor detail that always struck me about the Nuclear Assault sophomore was the imperative tense of the title. This isn't 'survival', or 'surviving'. No, the band is telling YOU to survive, while a menacing Satanic skull leers at you from above a pair of toxic smokestacks. It all plays into how relevant the New Yorkers were to the 80s, that time of late Cold War paranoia, AIDS pandemic, waste dumping and ozone depletion circa 'glamor'. Like Jimmy and Billy Lee fist fighting through the fictional streets of Double Dragon, so too do the Nukes, ramping up the level of hostility showcased on their earlier EPs and issuing what might prove to be the very pinnacle of urban East Coast riot-thrash to its day, an excellent soundtrack for curb-stomping post-apocalyptic mutants or just flossing out the cerebral nodes of all the bullshit that surrounds you on a daily basis.

Tonally, Survive is not a massive evolutionary stride forward from the previous album. You're still getting those punk and hardcore motifs, they just seem to better bleed into the harder bite of the metallurgical ingredients they culled from their traditional/speed influences. The crisp springiness of the Game Over guitar tone has been supplanted by a more muscled aesthetic fit for abusing carcasses at a meat packing plant. I'd say that the production of this record was more 'professional', better balanced than the other area breakouts of this time without sacrificing any of its visceral potency. For example, State of Euphoria and Under the Influence had nothing on this in terms of sheer bludgeoning force quotient. That's not to say I preferred the sound here to the debut, but it certainly fits the bill for a band who were outwardly exploding into the market like this one. The vocals, bass and drums are all well managed in the mix, and there remains that substratum of urgency to Nuclear Assault's performance here which made you feel like the sky was dropping, that all hell had broken loose in the street outside your home, and that you'd break out that spiked bat or those brass knuckles and phase into survival mode.

The bass playing is quite good. Not only do the lines bustle along with a kinetic, workmanlike utility similar to fellow New Yorkers Anthrax, but Dan Lilker loads in the fills and sufficiently anchors what many people today would probably consider a relatively simplistic palette of axe rhythms. Evans is mildly more forceful than on the debut, with some of his own refined fills heightening the intensity, and the guitars implement a lot of atmosphere to round out the crude, belligerent rhythms (like the melodies in the bridge of "Brainwashed"), a component they drew forward from their moodier pieces like "Brain Dead" or "The Plague". Connelly seems more emotive in his singing, though that might just come from the better lyrical configurations. These guys truly know how to get the pits worked up and the dead proteins whipping in their audience, and a huge part of that is the message behind what they're singing. Survive encourages intelligence and individuality to a fault with tracks like "Brainwashed" and "F#". This isn't poetry, and the lyrics and concept might seem rather plebeian to a modern audience, but in 1988 we needed all the ammunition we could to battle the hordes of  Bon Jovi and Poison drones, and Nuclear Assault provided us with an entire silo of rockets and rounds.

Where the album really excels for me beyond its elder sibling is in the songwriting. There are still a few of those flighty, cheesy briefs like "PSA" and "Got Another Quarter" which speed past in such a blur that they hardly matter. The cover of Led Zeppelin's "Good Times, Bad Times" does nothing for me, not because I can't appreciate the band's love of classic rock or the contrast against the harder originals, but I feel like they might have made it far more incendiary and a better fit to the remainder. Survive is not an album I wanna turn to for hard rock grooves and firing up a bong. It's for flinging manhole covers at the passing vehicles of police and politicians, or subway rumbling with Ajax and Swan. So, while it's not at all a bad version of the 1969 classic, I've always felt like one of these things did not belong with the other. Otherwise, though, you're getting about 28 minutes of knuckle dusting, pavement scraping apocalyptic entertainment the likes of which you're just not going to hear outside of other classics, like the painfully underrated Act of God (ZnoWhite).

"Brainwashed" is the towering juggernaut here, a mid-paced anti-TV/radio brawler which earns points not only for its unforgettable, iconic chorus of 'why don't you think for yourself ' but also for the gleaming knife like leads, bridge atmosphere, and for including the phrase 'regurgitated pap' under its eaves. This also had quite a cool video with the guys moshing around their local turf, creating havoc, Connelly standing on stage for his close ups with an utter lack of pretension, just a baseball hat and ANGER. Again, as I mentioned on the previous review, there was no sense of separation between this band and their audience. These were the dudes standing next to you at the gig. They WERE you, only given a louder voice through vexed, precision thrashing. Easily one of my favorite headbanging tunes of 1988, which is saying a lot, since more than any other the year was over saturated with excellence (to the point that, as much as I enjoy Survive, it wouldn't even have made my year's end top 20). This brought the word 'conformist' to the forefront of my vocabulary to the point that I must have pissed off everyone I knew.

It's not alone, of course, and between the hammering momentum of "Rise from the Ashes", "F#" and "Equal Rights", the last being the most hardcore inflected on the record, there seems no end to the crushing unrest. Other mid-paced beasts like "Great Depression" and "Wired", with its great bass flow and echoed, arching screams might not prove so catchy as "Brainwashed", but they effectively exhibit the band's added level of compositional variation and depth.There's another pretty popular tune called "Fight to Be Free", the first single, which brings back the clean guitar and harmonies the band had used before, and even while it's not a particular favorite of mine, there's an airiness to it that seems to foreshadow the following record, Handle With Care; though the band does lurch into a straight up mosh sequence in the bridge with some countered, rhythmic barking and zippy leads.

Survive has itself survived the ensuing decades with nary a scratch to its surface, sounding just as volatile, energetic and rebellious as it did when I bought it. There were definitely other thrash albums around this period which I preferred, like the the staggering artistry and complexity European groups like Coroner and Deathrow had evolved towards, or the accelerated splatter of Razor's Violent Restitution and Tankard's Morning After, but this felt like East Coast. It felt like home, and like Game Over, Taking Over, Among the Living, Why Play Around? and other staples of the region, belongs in the paws of any discriminating cypher of the asphalt.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (you hate the system but adhere to its view)

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Nuclear Assault - Game Over (1986)

New York City. Where the bomb dropped. Nuclear Assault. Perhaps never one of my absolute favorite thrash bands in the universe, but I'm not gonna lie to you: I owned the t-shirt. I bought the records. I watched the videos. I went to the gigs. I learned the songs on my guitar. This was surely one of that group of 'essentials' in the 80s that could provoke excitement by the mere mention of the name. Their visibility, touring and lyrical matter transformed them into one of the most emblematic, idolized and oft imitated thrash acts of the period. Hell, just the logo alone. But even more than that, I feel like Nuclear Assault were the 'iconic' East Coast band in this niche. Sure, Anthrax and Overkill sold more albums in the long run. Outlived Connelly and Lilker's band of mutants. M.O.D. might have developed a comparable buzz with their goofy antics. But when you close your eyes and think back on those halcyon days of hi top sneakers, denim vests and moshing in the shadow of the Cold War, your inner child drifts towards memories of mushroom clouds, panic on the streets, and a group of ragtag New Yorkers whose dead center delivery and violent riffing might have carved out an empire had they not rendered themselves irrelevant by the dawn of the 90s.

Of course, Game Over was set to tape well in advance of that inevitable decline, and it might be better dubbed 'Game On', because it sowed the irradiated fire seeds of its influences into something that would inspire urban slammers and party thrashers everywhere. The West Coast might have been the best coast, with its incredibly advancements in aggression (Dark Angel, Slayer, etc) and what with producing the most popular metal band of the 80s, but where the Atlantic metropolitan groups like Nuclear Assault excelled was in brandishing their punk and hardcore influences more directly into the angry writing and lyrical modus operandi. It doesn't take a genius to discern bands like Discharge or Minor Threat on this album; the brilliance is how they took such youthful unrest and applied to classic NWOBHM/speed metal riff structures to produce an urgent, distinct style to themselves, producing a cross cultural aesthetic that drew even more of the marginal metal audience over from the skinheads and mohawks usually associated with 'the other side'. There's a damn good reason bands like Nuclear Assault came up alongside the Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, Leeway and Sick of It All: their sociopolitical messages and gang-like resilience were often only divided by the length of their hair. And, in some cases, not even that...

But first and foremost, Game Over is a metal album. Its clean, rapid fire licks are the stuff of Venom and Motörhead intensified to beyond the speed limit ("Live, Suffer, Die"). The thundering implementation of the double bass to punk-borne chord sequence ("Sin", "Vengeance") manifest a complexity and busyness that you simply didn't expect out of the Ramones or Sex Pistols. There was a deeper side to the band than just their street savvy, and songs like "Brain Death" or the clinical mid-paced thrasher "Nuclear War" were more cognizant of melody and traditional riffing from over the pond, to the point that the contents of an album like this one were often set at great contrasts ("Hang the Pope" vs. "Brain Death", for instance), and perhaps the band were still not quire sure of how to flesh out their identity. But, then, that's the joy of this album: it's so damned earnest and innocent that it's impossible to dislike even in lieu of its flaws, which primarily appear in the uninteresting and unfunny vignettes like "My America" or the "Mr. Softee Theme", which even made me cringe as a 13 year old.

It was pretty par for the course in the 80s for thrash, punk and hardcore groups to include these goofy shorts as if to remind the audience that they were comedians in addition to musicians (a trait that would rub off on a lot of later grindcore), but where something like "Hang the Pope" at least has some vicious fortitude due to the accelerated riffing, these other two briefs always felt painfully unnecessary to me. Otherwise, this is a damned strong album, at least 7-8 of the tracks kick ass, and there's no question that this was one of the most manic and potential-ridden blue collar groups of the scene. You always felt like Nuclear Assault were your peers, your friends, good for a beer, never snotty or inaccessible, and the character pervades the very music on this album. So what if a bit of snot ran out of Game Over's nose and wound up in a cloning vat that would later produce the party crossover throwback called Municipal Waste?

The real star of this album: the production. Man, do I love the mix of the guitar on this record. Crisp and clear, with a lighter use of distortion than you might expect. Later records like Survive and Handle With Care would take the band into a harsher environment tonally, but here they were able to perfectly capture the balance of hardcore and speed. Lilker's bass also deserves mention, pumping and throbbing and bouncing with all the puerile punk tropes, yet too fast for the ol' circle pit. Glenn Evans' drums are admittedly pretty clean, but the levels provide an excellent exhibition of his fluidity. The guy was no Gene Hoglan, granted, but you could hear how he earned his sweat and respect, whether jamming on a typical rock beat in the lurching and quickening "After the Holocaust" or blasting through "Hang the Pope".

Which leads us to John Connelly, whose vocals were one of the most distinct features of Nuclear Assault. I can't think of anyone else out there who sounded like this man. He had an almost drunken swagger to the raw timbre of his throat, and yet it carried a particular melody with all its edginess. I suppose you could compare the pitch to something like Accept or AC/DC, but despite his ability to hit shift between higher notes and a ruddy mid range, what I enjoyed most was how I could connect to it. He didn't sound like a Geoff Tate or a Bruce Dickinson, removed from the everyman by several orders of magnitude due to their natural talents, but like a really fucking pissed off dude next door freaking out over some unforeseen spike in his electric bill. Like a metal Sam Kinison in one of his fits of rage. Or, rather, an even MORE metal Sam Kinison.

Favorites? I'll have to go with the intro instrumental "Live, Suffer, Die" which could have given Dave Mustaine and Megadeth a run for their money, so fast and flurried and precise. "Sin", "Stranded in Hell" and "Radiation Sickness" all stand with the fast paced chops, and the lyrical patterns and mid-paced banging gait of "Nuclear War" would no doubt rub off on the following album, Survive. "Brain Death" might just take the cake, though, the epic finale of the album which opens with clean and atmospheric guitars and then busts into one of the more memorable vocal choruses, and even got its own EP the same year (which I've covered elsewhere). The fact that even among the more impulsive, youthful tunes that make up the bulk of this record they would include a moody departure (and not a shitty ballad) like that speaks volumes that they were something special.

Ultimately, Game Over is not my favorite of the group's full-lengths, if only because I prefer the pummeling industrial-grade abuse and stronger songwriting of the two that followed it. I don't like some of the short bits. A few of the riffs (like the punk verse in "Vengeance") just don't stick with me. But it's immediate. It's (for the most part) fun. And miraculously, it holds up to scrutiny after 25+ years of dust and rust. Well worth owning whether you're a crossover diehard, you've got NYHC stamped on your knuckles, or you believe yourself any level of urbanite thrasher. If an East Coaster from Boston down to Washington, then this applies doubly to you: neglect at your own risk.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (I've paid much for my sins)

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Nuclear Assault - Brain Death EP (1986)

One of New York's original thrash metal acts alongside Anthrax and S.O.D., Nuclear Assault displayed a strong professional side to their music at an early point in their career, winning them a slot on the Combat Records roster, a union which was consummated with the release of this 1986 EP Brain Death. The title track to this will turn out to be redundant, included also upon their full-length debut Game Over the same year, but the other tracks are only available here or on the CD re-issue with the Fight to Be Free single added (1988).

Turns out that "Brain Death" itself is actually the weakest of the three tunes here, primarily as it suffers from a case of elephantitis. But at least for the first few minutes, it moves along with surety, as a tinny acoustic intro segues into a crisp, punchy speed/thrash metal lick. I absolutely love the guitar tone on this release, it's crude and fuzzy but clean as a whistle, and a nice fit for Dan Lilker's bombastic bass playing and John Connelly's trademark flair for shifting keys from his street-savvy mids to air raid highs. But the bridge here goes on far too long, taking about two minutes to get into the lead and the last verse refrain. Chop about two minutes and it would be quite a kickass introduction.

The other tracks are mercifully shorter, beginning with the belligerent, galloping "Final Flight" that has Connelly howling much like he would over the subsequent three albums. The lead guitar here is quite excellent, proof that Nuclear Assault's street level, hardcore roots were not about to discourage the metal bred crowd from appreciating their level of musicianship. Speaking of 'hardcore', the closing track "Demolition" (which had been brought forward from their Live, Suffer, Die demo in '85) definitely has a dark, slow punk-core riff in there, but it's betrayed by the fuzzy leads that stretch through the opening minute. Good lead here, and a nice, grooving bridge loaded with rapid mutes...in truth this is the best song here.

Brain Death suffers a bit that it's namesake drags on and also appears on Game Over, but all told this was a successful sampler for what the New Yorkers had to offer. If you can get it on the cheap, or you're a collector, it might be worth having for the rare tracks. As an introduction to their work, though, skip straight to the sophomore Survive.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (the scalpel they're sticking in you)

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Nuclear Assault - The Plague EP (1987)

Nuclear Assault was one of the more exciting New York contestants in the thrash Olympics of the 80s, in particular the body of work incorporating their first three albums, after which the quality of their songs fizzled (not to mention the abysmal joke of a comeback album Third World Genocide they put out a few years back). The Plague is an EP they released between the great Game Over and the thrash-ter-piece Survive, and notable for continuing their brash and noisy industrial grade thrash assault, as well as the great, mellowing title track.

Instrumental "Game Over" kicks off the album with some simple, flowing chops, the song could easily have had lyrics and fit in with Survive or Handle With Care. "Nightmares" is a quality rager, and as usual it features the bands bright, boundless energy exploding around a traditional NWOBHM/speed metal foundation. "You Figure It Out" is mediocre at best, an increasingly speedy crossover punk/thrashcore piece with goofy lyrics. Thankfully the band returns to what is important for the remainder, and the 2nd haf of the EP is superior, in part due to Connelly's memorable vocals. "Justice" is a pensive thrust of speed verses spiced up with some gladiatoral riffs. "The Plague" is the slowest track here, with a doom/thrash overtone, but ultimately very catchy even as Connelly's vocals soar close to off-key when he tries to up his register. "Cross of Iron" is the best of the faster material on the EP, summoning forth the iron gang locomotive of the band's better full-length material.

Sound-wise The Plague is similar to any of their other late 80s fare. A bright but noisy mix, guitars reverberating forth as they energetically infuse classic metal riffing with a caustic edge. Connelly's unique, torn sounding vocals remained intact here and are one of the true distinctions of the band. The material is dark and consistent, with the final three tracks dominating in quality. "You Figure it Out" is pretty stupid, but everything else is worth hearing.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (a science against life)

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