Description

Polish pressed music cassette. Clear cassette with white ALF text.

Poland is probably the country that had the most record labels in the world that only released cassettes. But even though there were lots of labels the market was still small as they only printed these for their own market inside of Poland. And a label in one town maybe lacked the distribution for another town and so on. A Warzaw or Krakow label might print more copies of a tape then labels from a smaller town. So even if there are thousands of releases you will notice how rare some are if you start to try to list the catalog number of one particular label. Some cassettes just rarely shows up. For a hardrock and heavy metal lover the label ALF is one to look for. The label was based at Pawilon 12 in Warsaw and also had a shop with the same name at Hala Mirowska in Warsaw. The label started in 1990 and were specializing in heavy metal and hardrock but the label was phased out in 1991. The label and the shop where then renamed Carnage Records / Carnage Shop. As Alf were going for just one year it meant that not that many titles were manufactured and sold. Around 350 tapes was released.

Nuclear Assault truly arrived on 1989’s Handle With Care — a record which stands the test of time as one of the East Coast’s best offerings to the thrash metal genre. The development displayed on their previous effort, Survive, was honed to an even tighter focus here, resulting in the band’s best and most powerful album. Outstanding thrashers like “Critical Mass,” “F: (Wake Up),” and “When Freedom Dies” lead the way with the same bile and fury fans had grown accustomed to. But the band also displays an increasing appreciation for melody and straight-ahead metal riffs on tracks like “Inherited Hell” and the epic “Trail of Tears” — no doubt upsetting those who preferred the rawer hardcore elements in their sound. And even though John Connely and Danny Lilker remain the band’s prime creative forces, drummer Glen Evans also contributes some killer material (“Emergency” and “Search & Seizure”), making Handle With Care Nuclear Assault’s truest band effort. Too bad this only presaged the splintering which would occur on 1991’s disappointing (and appropriately titled) Out of Order. (Lilker’s insistence on including pointless noise bursts spanning mere seconds, like “Funky Noise” and “Mother’s Day,” didn’t help matters any.) Still, Handle With Care is a perfect introduction, and definitely the must have of the Nuclear Assault albums.

Track list:
1. New Song
2. Critical Mass
3. Inherited Hell
4. Surgery
5. Emergency
6. Funky Noise
7. F (Wake Up)
8. When Freedom Dies
9. Search And Seizure
10. Torture Tactics
11. Mothers Day
12. Trail Of Tears