Review by Greg on August 2, 2023.

For being maybe the closest band to Fog Of War (read: the apex of the modern thrash scene) I can imagine, Cali's Zombie Holocaust never left me a huge impression. Granted, I still got their 'Boba Fett' cemented in my head, but even then, most of the merits should go to FoW covering it. The band has been basically silent since their 2013 sophomore Entitled To Enlightenment. Well, let's see how their last effort was, shall we?

Bluntly speaking, the main feel I get from Entitled To Enlightenment is a collection of the same factors that made their fellows such a great act, only with a worse execution. On the surface we find a very busy bass, cleanish vocals and extremely melodic thrash to back them up. But after a closer look, the cracks start to show. For starters, thrash is but a fraction of the whole thing. You get your odd 30-something seconds of thrashing every now and then, but they're all diluted among all kinds of stuff – I hear almost pop punk in 'High Five', a post-rock solo and a flute in 'Wagon Burner' (which is still the best pick here), a sax in 'Here's To You', which also has several false endings with a ghost rap track... I wish I was making up all of this. To clarify, this is not a work of incompetent people, that's for sure. Zombie Holocaust can still shred a good solo like on 'Dry Flower' or the neat instrumental 'Sound Of Awakening', and the aforementioned one in 'Wagon Burner' is honestly beautiful – but many of these 44 minutes just feel... inconsequential. The notable busy bass I hinted at earlier is more like saying that the album is basically bass-driven, with tragically inoffensive guitars, while the vocals... well, I don't want to exploit frontman Nicholas Gomez's nickname to describe them, but they're utterly amateurish and lack any kind of credibility as, well, a thrash metal vocalist. Not that the band was ever meant to be taken seriously, I guess, but if professionals have standards, well, any other shouldn't disregard them either.

To sum up, I really can't put into words how much of a disjointed mess Entitled To Enlightenment is. It's original, I can give them that, and I can reckon my own simple-mindedness in being simply appalled at how really fuckin' slow the whole thing is, but I also think that a song called 'Pedal To The Metal' shouldn't be the most punk-influenced. What do I know? Well, all I know is that I'm really looking forward to the moment I'll have forgotten this. Not that it's gonna take long, mind you.

Rating: 4.9 out of 10