Assaultive Nuclear Assault, Audience at Fender’s

The rapidly rising New York hard-core/metal quartet Nuclear Assault didn’t actually pack Fender’s in Long Beach to the rafters, but many of the several hundred kids in attendance expressed their enthusiasm for the band by leaping from the rafters.

This energetic outfit’s approach tends to favor ferocious, speedy rhythms and raw power over melody. Vocalist-guitarist John Connolly doesn’t sing so much as release feral screams. (You were expecting him merely to warble a little ditty over the band’s fiery riffing and mega-drums?)

One of Nuclear Assault’s strengths is its lyrics, which earnestly rail against nuclear war and racial prejudice. But at Fender’s, the exceptionally violent audience (the de rigueur slam dancing had a more vicious quality than usual) related more to the fierceness of the music, rather than the message. Nobody attends a metal show to be educated, but the dichotomy was nonetheless disturbing.