NUKEM is a Thrash metal trio from San Diego, California, that delivers an "honest, old school thrash attack." They were formed in 2012, and were opening acts for big bands such as KREATOR, METAL CHURCH, SAXON, and many more. Now, as for a more subjective opinion... I live with a die-hard thrasher in the house, and he asked me to turn that thing down. That says something. Not sure how to put it into words, but their "honest, old school thrash" sounds to me far too little as thrash (ok... maybe if I remove one "H" from the word, fits a lot better, but that's a different story), and more towards something punk...ish.

The overall instrumental, guitar riffs and drums tend to hold the exact same line on all 9 songs with barely any changes whatsoever between names. Probably I'd find some diversity in the 2 bonus tracks, "T.V. Crimes" and "Suspicious Minds", but that would be more than expectable, given those are covers of  BLACK SABBATH, respectively ELVIS PRESLEY, but unfortunately, for the purpose of this review, I was not privy to them, so I cannot say for sure. Maybe they still found an innovative way to make them as bland as the rest of the album. After listening to the whole album 3 or 4 times, I barely notice when the tracks change.

When I first played the album, "WarWolf" was promising; voice wasn't great, it felt like the vocal was pushing a bit too hard, but overall, was rather catchy. Switching over to "Evelyn's Awakening", the second one on the list. It didn't really sound thrash-y at all to me, more like old school heavy, where I have to admit; this one actually stands out a bit from the others. "The Atomic Age", "The Deceiver", "Bloodseeker" I only noticed the intro from them when the switch was made. As the intro passed, I thought I was still listening to the previous song, checked my music player to be sure I did not put one song on repeat. The only time I actually noticed a change was at "Lucida Sidera", almost at the end of the album - a very nice combination of acoustic and electrical guitar instrumental short song. Not even in the same zip code as the thrash genre, but it was the most enjoyable one minute and 38 seconds that I found.

All in all, I don't know what to say... Yes, the guitars sounded fast-paced and relatively well, but the overall consistency of the instrumentals and the vocals just did not cut it. The voice itself seemed too pushed, the cohesion barely there, and it just couldn't give me the feeling that most good thrash bands do.