PSYCHO'S RECORD PILE
Nuclear Assault- Handle With Care (1989)


I never considered myself to be much of a diehard metal fan. Still, I have a deep dislike of pigeonholing and labeling any form of art. Besides, to dismiss an entire genre of music just cheats oneself. But oh Hell, I'm guilty of labeling for the sake of description from time to time anyway.

I don't care what Nuclear Assault gets tagged with in time- hardcore crossover, thrash metal, speed metal, conscious latter day crossover hardcore thrash speed death metal, whatever. These boys kicked the shit out of 97/100ths of "the competition" in their heyday. The stuff they came up with goes into such seamless streams of melodic yet hard-as-Hell headbanger flow that upon first listening, the "real musicians" of the world may pooh-pooh their material as easy- yeah, until they actually try to fuckin' play it. Right, that is.

It's called heart, ye hacks of the music theory. Either you have a grasp of it or you don't. Doesn't matter how well you play a diminished seventh or how well you cross in and out of a 7/4 beat. Nuclear Assault had that quality necessary for a good, nay, great band, metal or otherwise, in that they knew exactly how they wanted to perform and write songs, and succeeded in bringing that vision to reality.

1989's Handle With Care is the album that thrust Nuclear Assault into the mainstream spotlight. Sort of. MTV's Headbanger's Ball and 120 Minutes programs featured heavily the band's video for "Critical Mass", which was aided by a special appearance by a freshly tabloid-exploited, Playboy-spreaded and breast-augmented Jessica Hahn. Jessica and her two fake friends weren't especially necessary as the real scene stealers were the lyrics to the song, which were smartly ticker-tape captioned at the bottom of the screen: "The Biosphere, the place we live/It seems like we don't give a damn/Other species flushed down the tubes/We need another place to rape/The way we live we will destroy/Every other living thing/'Til none are left except our race/And then we will destroy ourselves". HUH? Isn't this what we would get off the lyric sheet to a Crass or MDC album?

It doesn't stop there, by the way. "Inherited Hell" continues to expound upon the subject of eco-neglect. "When Freedom Dies" is like a time capsule of relevance: "We become the enemy/When freedom dies for security". They were addressing the Soviet/American nuclear contention of the time, but upon a second look nowadays, could just as easily be addressing today's issues of personal liberties in the wake of September 11th's events.

I can safely declare as well that this entire recording is free of gratuitous Satanic references and token bashing of divine beliefs. And we're not talking about that wussy Jeezo metal trend from around the same era either. Nuclear Assault represented unpretentious regular guy and gal headbangers and heshers. If there's ever anything close to a reunion tour I'll see youse in the pit.