Band:	Blood Red Angel
Album:	Crime Entertainment
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	2004

01. Intro
02. Disabled Mankind
03. Like A Cancer
04. Damaged
05. World Of Scum
06. Downwards
07. War Entertainment
08. Presence Of A Shadow
09. The New Rights
10. Darksideforce
11. Decline

This is already the third album for this thrash band that define themselves as 'Rhine Area Thrash'. Another stupid genre like Battle Metal or Faggoth Metal (read Wikipedia if you want to have a good laugh about this genre)? Well, yes and no. Obviously it is a gimmick but it can also be seen as a new definition for this type of thrash that gathers influence from Slayer, German thrash like Kreator and Destruction and sometimes from the modern Swedish thrash acts such as The Haunted. Basically, this music is deeply rooted in the 80's but adds more modern touches that make it sound quite up-to-date with today's standards.

Crime Entertainment opens on the Slayer-esque "Disabled Mankind" and its very catchy hardcorish chorus. The music is fast and furious with solos all over the place. But first problem: the vocals are highly annoying and almost ruining the song. That guy sounds as if his throat were blocked by spit. Fortunately, he's much better on the rest of the songs. This is a very strong opener if the vocals don't turn you off.

So the vocals get better afterwards but the music, not really. This album is not bad by any means, you even get some passages when you're like "wow, what the hell was THAT?" but overall something's missing. Actually Crime Entertainment is not varied enough and starts being a wee bit repetitive halfway through. And when Blood Red Angel do innovate, it sounds odd, like this melodic solo à la Master Of Puppets right in the middle of 'Downwards'. Good idea, but it sounds out of place.

Ok I'm being harsh, there are many good things on this album. As said before, the solos are numerous and very well executed ('The New Rights'), there's a lot of simple yet attention-grabbing riffs, the lyrics are fine in a socially-concerned way and some songs really stand out (the chorus on 'World Of Scum' blew me away). The production is clean but dirty, it reminds of the most punk-oriented German bands and adds a lot to the aggressiveness of the package. This is the kind of release that fans of German and great solos thrash will love. That is really too bad that so many songs are fillers. Could have been a killer thrash album but in the end it is just good.

Highlights: Disabled Mankind, World Of Scum, The New Rights, Darksideforce