Acid Reign started in 1985, disappeared for 24 years, and returned with Howard H Smith as the only original member. The current line-up has now been active for 11 years, and Daze Of The Week is their second album since the reboot.
The new album came out on May 15th. H describes it as an old-school thrash metal record with a lot of energy, built around speed, mosh parts, shouty backing vocals, catchy choruses and the humour that has always been part of Acid Reign.
That personality is also in the title. Daze Of The Week sounds like a joke at first, but the title-track makes clear that the spelling is part of the point. Speaking to AFRICA.ROCKS for Beyond Africa, H talked about the new album, instinctive songwriting, impatience, and why some listeners will always hear Acid Reign as soon as his voice comes in.
“in a world of homogeneous thrash metal, we have a distinct sound and aesthetic.”
Acid Reign have always had a very distinct personality within UK thrash. On Daze Of The Week, was there anything you deliberately chose not to modernise?
When it comes to songwriting, it is very hard to choose anything deliberately. The song wants what the song wants. It is very difficult to work to any kind of template. For instance, trying to deliberately write a hit single is still impossible, even with AI. So I guess my answer is no, not really. We just set out to write an old-school thrash metal album with a shit tonne of energy.
The title Daze Of The Week sounds immediately like Acid Reign: funny on the surface, but with something more poisonous underneath. Who came up with it, and what was the band’s first reaction?
I came up with that title many years ago. I had the chance to write, but I never had suitable lyrics. I had the title, though. When we started writing the new album, it was the second song we wrote, and I knew then that it had to be the album title as well. As I am sure you will have noticed, the song is spelt “Daze Of The Weak”. This is not a typo.
Some bands come back trying to prove they can still be heavy; Acid Reign seem more interested in proving you can still be yourselves. Is that something you think about when writing new material?
Great question. I like that! It probably reflects how little thought goes into it. Like I said before, when writing songs, you just focus on what that song needs, and at this stage in our career that is more instinct than anything else. Also, as someone said the other day, “as soon as I hear H’s voice, it takes me back to the late 80s”. So for some people, no matter what we do, we will always sound like ourselves.
For someone who only knows the classic-era Acid Reign records, what detail on this release do you think will make them go, “yes, this could only be Acid Reign”?
The whole package: catchy choruses, stompy mosh parts, shouty backing vocals, lots of speed, the lyrics, the artwork. I would like to think that, in a world of homogeneous thrash metal, we have a distinct sound and aesthetic.
Thrash has always thrived on urgency, but today everything feels instant, disposable and overloaded. Does that make it easier or harder to write music that sounds genuinely impatient?
That is my favourite description of the energy on this album: impatient! That is very much in my nature. Being an ADHD adult, the one thing in my particular diagnosis that I hate and cannot handle in any form, whether in a car or on foot, is queuing. I hate it! So maybe it is as simple as that. I am always in a rush, the band is always in a rush, and we are always looking forward to the next thing, never backwards.
Stream/Buy Daze of the Week on Bandcamp.
Links:
https://acidreign1.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/acid.reign.thrash
https://www.instagram.com/acidreignuk/
https://twitter.com/acidreignuk
https://www.youtube.com/user/AcidReignTV
