{"id":102309,"date":"2024-01-21T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-21T00:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=102309"},"modified":"2024-02-07T13:41:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T13:41:00","slug":"ep-review-reign-foul-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/ep-review-reign-foul-territory\/","title":{"rendered":"REIGN – Foul Territory EP (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

REIGN
Foul Territory EP<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSelf-released (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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I\u2019m blaming the bland band name for the fact I\u2019ve not previously come across this Chicago, Illinois-based act. These thrashers formed in 2013 and have already released a brace of EPs, plus a live album \u2013 Live On WZRD 88.3 Chicago<\/em> (2017) \u2013 and full-length studio outing \u2013 Destitute<\/em> (2018) \u2013 so I\u2019m somewhat embarrassed that they slipped under my radar.<\/p>\n

Foul Territory<\/em> is a strong six song release, as one would expect from a combo that\u2019s been in existence for over 10 years. However, this is leaps and bounds better than acts like Evile who seem to get more attention. Reign plays a vicious thrash but with progressive layers and death metal tweaks, in turn resulting in a fascinating combination of the greyer areas of, say, Coroner and the crunch of Exodus or Heathen. I\u2019m a massive Coroner fan so to hear such an influence excites me.<\/p>\n

The vocals are seething rasps, the riffs are crisp and the percussion a volatile tirade, but most importantly this outing is clever. Reign doesn\u2019t rely on silly humour; instead, you get snapped by an unorthodox quandary whereby colourless thrash fuses with kaleidoscopic technicality.<\/p>\n

With \u2018Murder Capital\u2019 there is a dehydrated whip to proceedings as if one was transported back to the late-80s and early-90s, but for good measure some Lazarus A.D. was thrown into the mix. The vocals do have that tendency to drift into a contemporary rawness and at times they do grate and become generic, but because the aggression is so persistent and the music sporadically intricate there remains a freshness. Strangely, there are flashes of Death, Atheist and even Carcass at their most melodic to coincide with the scathing battering, perfect examples being \u2018Concrete Tomb\u2019 and \u2018Departure\u2019.<\/p>\n

I hope this release propels Reign into the major thrash league because this EP claws the membranes with its mighty metallic claws.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

REIGNFoul Territory EP Self-released (2024)Rating: 8\/10 I\u2019m blaming the bland band name for the fact I\u2019ve not previously come across this Chicago, Illinois-based act. These thrashers formed in 2013 and have already released a brace of EPs, plus a live album \u2013 Live On WZRD 88.3 Chicago (2017) \u2013 and full-length studio outing \u2013 Destitute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5563],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-reign-chicago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102310,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102309\/revisions\/102310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}