OK, so I’m late to the party with this one but, you know what they say, it’s better late than never and, when it comes to Acid Reign it doesn’t matter when you show up, just so long as you do.
Much has changed since 2019 and The Age Of Entitlement. Matt Smith and Darren Mcgillivray have joined the fray on lead and rhythm guitars respectively, while former Shrapnel drummer Johnny Grimley is behind the kit. That leaves vocalist Howard “H” Smith and bassist Pete Dee as the sole-surviving members of the Entitlement era and yet the band sounds remarkably coherent with Daze Of The Week racking up new fans by the bucketload.
The album opens as the hazy strains of The Who Of You slowly form into a coherent blast of punk-infused thrash metal. Delivered with commendable force, it’s the sort of potent opener that leaves the competition feeling somewhat weak around the knees and, as the machine-gun opening of Daze Of The Weak ably demonstrates, the competition is right to be worried. Free from the spit and polish that so often threatens to derail modern metal productions, Daze Of The Weak harks back to the early days of Anthrax, H even finding the space to drop a briefly melodic chorus that serves to make the track memorable without diminishing its visceral power.
Having kicked off the album with a youthful vigour that would shame a band just starting out, Acid Reign plunge headlong into No Truth. Led by a rage-fuelled scream of “parasite” and driven by a searing lead from Matt Smith, No Truth is anger-as-catharsis welded to a vital thrash exoskeleton that simply wades through the competition, hacking and slashing as it goes. The same could be said for the virulent groove of Conniption King, a testament-sized assault on the senses that builds to a truly epic climax. The first half of the album then concludes with the grammatically challengedAlonely, which cruises on the back of a bruising, hyper-fast thrash riff with more than a touch of vintage Megadeth about it.
Were you foolish enough to imagine the mid-point might be the signal for Acid Reign slowing the pace, you’d be sorely mistaken, for the savage Blind Lies might just be the hardest song on the album thus far. With everything from Pete’s creeping bass lines to the subtle moment of calm that lies at the heart of the storm, Blind Lies is a masterclass in metal. Reasserting the punk edge with which they kicked off the album, Acid Reign kick off Sorrowsworn amidst an ear-raping squall of feedback. They follow it with the angular riffing of Old Young Man, which is disarmingly catchy in a Suicidal Tendencies sort of way.
A short, sharp blast, Fantastic Passion does everything it needs to do in just three-and-a-half minutes, leaving listeners bloodied and bruised. The band then bring this most vicious of albums to a close with the monstrous Centre Of Everything, a slow-building exercise in tension and release that neatly brings it altogether with a touch of melodic class and plenty of aggression.
And that’s it. With ten brilliant tracks, powerful production, and cool album art (courtesy of the ever-awesome Dan Goldsworthy), Acid Reign don’t put a single foot wrong. Short, sharp, and packed with memorable set pieces, Daze Of The Week is the old-school thrash album for which we’ve all been praying. 9.5/10
