3 and a half decades has done nothing to silence the polemical dissonance of the UK based Thrash Metal act, ACID REIGN.  Unlike other long term bands ACID REIGN had a hiatus about them for about 24 years yet despite the time spent in silence their name and visage was re-enkindled under singer H's pursuits and stands ready and willing spilling out a deluge of new music and venomous tones on their latest release "The Age Of Entitlement". The name alone is filled with humor.

The album opens up with an instrumental named "T.A.O.E."-whose name is an acronym for the album title, itself an interesting approach to the convention of naming-a melodic, über-dynamic, and polyphonic track which manages to raise more questions than it answers. "The New Low" kicks off immediately breaking the noise from the previous track before it has a chance to even fade out, the uplifting chord progression coupled with the accentuated drums before the band joins in highlights the heaviest elements of the riff. The riff quickly diverges into a leading musing before simplifying once again to lay foundation for the verse; the mixture of harmony, dissonance, and contrasting tones make this track stand out immediately separating from your run-of-the-mill distilled Thrash as too much thought was put into the music to simply mold a track that matches the commonwealth's soundscape, it's evident plainly that the band is more interested in carving out their own musical niche instead of settling in an absent one. "NewAgeNarcissist" begins next strutting in with little hesitation the band then complements the lead before joining in altogether, the drums pop in perfect sequence with the strings progression during the verse creating a larger-than-life sound.

The album was constructed with high fidelity of every part, each instrument sounding and resounding with little to no limitations, the care and craft of each performance has been meticulously recorded and meshed together via supreme quality and attention. The guitars are louder than traditional Thrash albums but fill out the space the many albums are lacking in and while they do bleed a bit over the vocals they remain defined and intact due to how clearly they cut through the band.  The chorus is a bit much at times but works its way into defining the band's sound and approach, which again separates them from traditional acts. The drums go through a wide range of different styles and approaches from the punk oriented, "Blood Makes Noise" to the broken and anthemic "Hardship" and finally to the dark and dynamic "Within The Woods" wherein the drums are deep, drawn out, and purely homophonic at certain points, a very odd and mesmerizing phenomenon.

ACID REIGNS garbs itself within a unique light worn by no other whereupon they meet the many intersecting avenues of heavy, fast, melodic, and dissonant and meet each with eagerness that the listener interprets as "The Age Of Enlightenment;" having never heard the band before they will now be a recurring addition to my playlists.