Band:	Nuclear Assault
Album:	Third World Genocide
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	August 29, 2005
A review by:	deadone

01. Third World Genocide
02. Price Of Freedom
03. Human Wreckage
04. Living Hell
05. Whine And Cheese
06. Defiled Innocence
07. Exoskeletal
08. Discharged Reason
09. Fractured Minds
10. The Hockey Song
11. Eroded Liberty
12. Long Haired A$$hole
13. Glenn's Song

Some things should just stay dead. As any zombie aficionado will tell you, things that crawl out of graves seldom come out better or equal to their living versions. Dan Lilker and co. should've taken some time to consider this premise before reanimating Nuclear Assault and coming up with the abomination that is Third World Genocide.

So if you were foolish enough to spend money on this or even waste your time listening to it, you would get a third-rate modern thrash album that captures none of the rawness and intensity of the original Nuclear Assault. Occasionally they mix it up with some generic groove metal, some terrible punk rock a la "Whine and Cheese," and lame attempts at humour with the banjo-driven country yokel tune that is "Long Haired Asshole."

There's virtually nothing right with this. The production is muffled and amateurish. It's so bad it sounds like a demo, especially the drums with their over-loud snares and cymbals. The riffs and songwriting are generic and tired. There's no real immediacy in the delivery either. It sounds lazy and stoned, which is probably the exact state of mind the boys were in when they concocted this tripe.

Vocalist John Connelly sounds terrible. He was never a great vocalist but he no longer has any of the passion and bile he displayed back in the 1980s on classics such Game Over or Handle With Care. He used to explode out of your speakers but now just sounds like a sad, aimless joke.

About the only time band seem to wake up and kick into gear are the derivative but energetic "Fractured Minds" and "Eroded Liberty." These have some of the old Nuclear Assault punchy energy but are still let down by that awful production and are still at best generic, by-the-numbers Nuclear Assault.

Seldom has a reformed act failed so miserably to capture any of their original energy. And seldom has a band of experienced musicians sounded so amateurish and clueless. Third World Genocide is what one expects out of a bunch of high school stoner rejects, not from a band whose members have been in the extreme metal scene for a total of over two decades at the time of release and helped pioneer thrash metal in the first place.