XentrixWalking down into the depths of The Underworld was relatively easy this evening. Perhaps owing to Paradise Lost playing a couple blocks away and Annihilator a couple miles away. Either way it allowed for it to be a rather intimate evening with the venue being rather packed during the Acid Reign set.

Within a minute of setting foot on the floor below the stage the opening act of the night Shrapnel walked in above me. The Norwich quintet quickly set to work on their 40 minute set. Vocalist Jae Hadley kept introducing the songs informing us that they were about killing people with titles like “Red Terror”, “Titan”, “Pseudocommando” and the title track from their début album “The Virus Conspires”. While I found guitarists Nathan Sadd and Chris Martin extremely proficient, the first thing I noticed was the standard guitar turning. It’s been a while since I’ve watched a band that wasn’t downtuned to add heaviness to the guitars, but they used this to their advantage by having the leads cut through Cai Beschorner’s bass and Jonathan Grimley’s drums with ease. While a self-professed thrash fan, Xentrix, Acid Reign and Slammer are the only 3 British trash bands I can name off the top of my head, okay maybe Lawnmower Deth but I only know 1 song of theirs and it sounded more like death metal if memory servers. But I digress from the point I’m making, which is while I love thrash unless I’m familiar with the material or it’s really catchy and interesting its major pitfall is that sometimes songs can go on for a little too long or just start to blend into each other. With that in mind, a shorter sharper set may have stopped people wondering off before they finished, all in all they put on a good show and played with plenty of energy.

It would appear that most people were here to watch “the Squaredanciest band in the world and kings of United Kingdom Apple Core… Acid Reign“, as announced over the Tannoy (okay I have no idea of the brand of PA, nevertheless…) before they sauntered on stage to entertain us for the next hour and highly entertaining they were too. I don’t recall what the opening number was (refer to above about only knowing 2 UK thrash bands) but it had H (Howard Smith) bouncing around as if he were 20 again while singing with a huge grin on his face. The rather catchy chorus of “Humanoia” even had me singing along while everyone else was bouncing happily. Cooky and Paul Chanter traded leads on new song “Plan of the Damned” which was rather well received by everyone and even got a no(d) of approval from ex-guitarist Kevin Papworth who was standing in the wings watching the show. Apparently the band had informed the venue they were giving permission for stage-diving to take place and with this in mind there were plenty of bodies being flung from stage into the front row during “Blind Aggression” and “Hangin’ on the Telephone”. The old school circle pit going around the central pillar during “Goddess” went rather well, as H pointed out it wasn’t meant to be a testosterone fuelled feud but rather a metal conga full of bangers. As a tribute to Agnostic Front whom played The Underworld the night before they played a rather punky song which had everyone bouncing around in their little squares, it may have been “Warriors of Genghis Khan” unless it was just what some punter near me was yelling out as a request. A rather brief rendition of the “Jaws” theme tune was followed by “Motherly Love” with Pete Dee thumping out the brief bass solo before Marc Jackson’s pounding drums drowned it again and H had us all singing the chorus. H’s quips and banter kept everything running smoothly between songs and were definitely humorous to say the least.

I was feeling rather remiss for not listening to my Xentrix back catalogue before coming to the gig but found that it wouldn’t’ve mattered as I knew all the old songs they played well enough anyway. The gig did however make me want to revisit them all and whet my appetite for the new album. Once The Terminator theme tune ended, Kristian Havard and Chris Astley’s powerful guitar riffing took us into “Dark Enemy” where it was instantly apparent that Chris’s vocals were just as powerful while retaining plenty of melody. I’m not sure if the floor was emptier owing to it having been late on a Sunday night or more people were watching from the top of the stairs but either way it allowed me more room to enjoy Kristian’s superb lead on “Balance of Power” and join in with everyone around me during the chorus. I don’t think anyone could help but headbang to “Back in the Real World” as Dennis Gasser’s metronomic snare was so easy to follow. With the majority of the set coming from ‘Shattered Existence’ it was a nice change when the very fast “Questions” was played, but something which got plenty of applause was the news that the recording of the new album is complete before sharing new track “World of Mouth” with us. Pointing out that while “Reasons for Destruction” was written nearly 30 years ago its theme is possibly even more pertinent today. Another new track “There Will Be Consequences” showed that they can write songs that are even faster than some of their older stuff before Chris Shires got to slow things down completely for the bass intro to “For Whose Advantage?”. They ended their set on a high with “Crimes” before returning for the encore of “Black Embrace”, the new song “Red Mist” and the fantastic “No Compromise”. While I know ‘Kin’ wasn’t nearly as up-tempo as the first two albums, but I for one enjoyed plenty of songs contained therein and would’ve liked to hear anything from it, but I guess the 3 new songs more than made up for it and as for all the calls for “Ghostbusters”… ‘Dilute To Taste’ may have been my introduction to Xentrix and while I too would’ve loved to hear it I just guessed I was 25 years too late to get the privileged. That said, they were still the best band of the night for me.

(Review Marco Gaminara)