A Review of the Album "the Age of Entitlement" by British Thrash Metal Band Acid Reign

Acid Reign, the British thrash metal band that impressed us with their very good second studio album Obnoxious back in 1990 has finally returned with a new album as of 2019 called The Age of Entitlement. Howard “H” Smith reformed the band in 2015 and he is the only original member left from those early days. I didn't think that these guys would ever come back because they had been disbanded for so long but here they are.

Acid Reign along with Xentrix are the only 2 British thrash metal bands of prominence that I know of but it is a welcome return for Acid Reign as the album that they have released in 29 years is more aggressive and one funny thing is that the album has a song title with the following construction:#newagenarcissist! How funny is that? So what is this song like? These guys come out of the gate with riffing more intense compared to how they were before they broke up in 1991. There is the constant singing of “everybody wants to be me.” These kinds of lyrics may in fact be how a narcissist feels on the inside. These kinds of people constantly need to be praised in order to feel validated.

Well, the band mixed humor into their music for those of us that recall. The album begins with the short song called T.A.O.E. This song is a heavy song that sounds like a modern version of Megadeth with progressive riffing mixed in. Those people that came of age during the year 2000 and thereafter (the millennial generation) feel like they are entitled to things these days and you wonder why Acid Reign decided to call their newest album whatever they did.

“The New Low” lyrically is about a person that is so toxic that he poisons other people around him. Can we ever make amends with these kinds of people? It is very challenging to so so and immediately we hear that the new version of this British band is heavier and more aggressive. They are definitely back and they have that refuse to quit kind of attitude which has brought them back into the music scene. “My Peace of Hell” is a song that slowly builds up into an intense thrash kind of song and I think that these guys wanted to show that they can still provide the intense kind of thrash even though they are in middle age. Some of the riffing reminds me of Canada's Annihilator though which may be a pro or a con depending upon what you are looking for. “Sense of Independence” starts out with drumming parts and a riffing part that has picking that builds up slowly and there is no shortage of speed on this album as I think that they wanted to come up with their own version of the fastest and most aggressive form of thrash to date and they may not have as much humor in this album but nonetheless the music on this album works out just enough without annoying you. I've heard that the song Hardship sounds like Metallica era ...And Justice for All but it is really like that? The song is about a person that is screwing up everything so badly that he needs help to heal himself from his hardship and struggles. There is the question of how this happened to that person. The middle melodic section of this song indeed sounds like something we would have heard on ...And Justice for All. Within the Woods is the longest song in the album clocking in at 8 minutes and 20 seconds as there is the constant uttering of the word “chaos” but what is in this song is not musically chaotic but a song that flows through nicely even if it is not their fast thrash style. This song is more mid-tempo with melodic vocals. “Ripped Apart” is a song that starts with a noticeable bass part as it gets into another fast song similar to songs such as FFF by Megadeth or She Wolf. “United Hates” is a song that starts out with an acoustic part that may feel like the old Metallica stuff we heard back in 1986 as the stage is set for a nice finish.

Is The Age of Entitlement a better album than Obnoxious in 1990? That is a very tough call as that album is also pretty solid as well but this newest album by these British guys represents a return to playing music in a furious manner, something which we have not ever seen from these guys.