Two years ago when Nuclear Dudes dropped Boss Blades, I questioned where the hell the project could go from there, eventually ending on ‘I don’t know‘. Boss Blades was a high I wasn’t expecting, an album that rivaled the best stuff that Jon Weisnewski put out with his band Sandrider, one of my favorites of all time (and now unfortunately on somewhat of a hiatus). The answer lies in Truth Paste and, as the saying goes, the truth was hard to swallow at first: a new member has been added.
No longer is Nuclear Dudes the personal passion project I made it out to be in my Boss Blades review, but now a collaborative effort and natural evolution to make this a live show-able endeavor with Brandon Nakamura (Teen Cthulhu, Doomsday 1999, Cat Toy) on vocals. I didn’t know shit about him, but a very cursory dive into Nakamura’s work shows the kind of tightly-wound entropy that I’d assume Weisnewski would associate with (hence them playing together in a grind band called White Jazz some time ago). More importantly, this means I should, according to my own arbitrary rule of grammatically treating bands as a group of people because that’s what they are, Nuclear Dudes will henceforth be referred to with plural pronouns. Congrats!
To be honest, at first I wasn’t big on the idea – as if I had any say. I’ve spent the last decade-plus accustomed to Weisnewski’s vocals one way or another, always finding his commanding yell to be a comfort. Listen to Sandrider‘s “Ruiner” to see what I mean. Not to mention, we were three Nuclear Dudes albums deep now (not including the synthstrumental album Compression Crimes 1 from last year, no disrespect intended because it’s good too) with Weisnewski leading in every way – who does this new person think he is?! I don’t know, but he’s really nice. His harsh, hissing vocal style fits nicely with Weisnewski’s, even becoming a Seth Putman-like foil to him at times. As long as you don’t mind abandoning all hope at interpreting the lyrics, Nakamura is a nice addition.
And let’s be real – the soul of Nuclear Dudes remains unchanged. The album launches off with a nod to the intro of Guns N’ Roses‘ “Welcome to the Jungle”, a great rock party starter in its own right, but instead of Slash’s rebellious, commanding leads after the drop, we get a Chernobyl-esque implosion felt miles away from the epicenter, spreading a grindcore fervor the project has played with since day one. Funny song titles, RoboCop movie samples, it’s all here. The Bandcamp description even says ‘Clarence Boddicker will set you free‘, just don’t expect to buy the album for a dollar.
I may have mentioned this in a previous article, but just in case, Nuclear Dudes seem to carry on the Gen X gritty moviegoer chaos that grindcore greats Graf Orlock did for over a decade and it’s beautiful. The extras that help define Nuclear Dudes as their own thing like the heavy synth action or apocalyptic haze of the lighter, atmospheric parts. I wish there was more of the latter though – while “Juggalos for Congress” contains a really nice instrumental break in this vein, it pales in comparison to the intense, experimental slow burn of “Many Knives” or “Year 3” from their last album. Truth Paste is definitely played a bit straighter like their previous albums, Bad at Sleep and Gin & Panic, and that’s fine too.
“Death at Burning Man” has playful, foundational synths that build to a relatively contained song with a slower pace and a driving energy that actually seems invested in keeping things on the road. The vocals are as unhinged as ever, though, like hearing a War Boy from Mad Max command a horde of chromed-out, Valhalla-seeking killers. The title track collapses your lungs with how abrasive and jolting it is, utilizing more deliberate and coherent sections only to highlight the wilder elements more. “Holiday Warfare” is grindcore mayhem all the way through – not much stopping it from swallowing whatever it wants and using a Bowie knife to pick its teeth afterward.
In some ways, Truth Paste mobilizes as if it were one cohesive project; in others, each song is a unique vignette of abject sonic terrorism that are only connected by a common goal of fucking up everything in their path. From an outsider’s perspective, this is the Nuclear Dudes way, born of vibrating, stewing creative energy during COVID isolation and giving it an outlet that’s unlike much else out there. Brandon Nakamura has proven to be a wonderful asset to the project as he enables it to go full goblin mode while Jon Weisnewski constructs the most elaborately Frankensteined grinding metal babies he can like they were neon-coated LEGO sets. This album may not be my favorite project of theirs, but damn if it’s still not a fun listen. Just don’t drink orange juice after listening to it.
