Jacobin more prominent in leading France, the period when war was declared on Austria and Prussia, the monarchy was overthrown and the Republic created. In May 1793, the leaders of the Mountain faction led by Maximilien Robespierre succeeded in sidelining the Girondin faction and controlled the government until July 1794. Their time in government was characterized by high levels of political violence and for this reason the period of the Jacobin/Mountain government is also commonly referred to as the Reign of Terror. In October 1793, 21 prominent Girondins were guillotined. The Mountain-dominated government executed 17,000 opponents nationwide, purportedly to suppress the
Reign of Terror (Sleigh Bells album) the latter also describing the flag as being "ostentatious". Because the songs on "Reign of Terror" have more guitar harmonies than previous releases, Sleigh Bells employed Jason Boyer as a backing touring guitarist for live performances. Miller also liked the symmetry of having two guitarists on both sides of a vocalist. Prior to the album's release, several publications listed "Reign of Terror" as an anticipated release for the first part of 2012 including "Spin", "Time", Metacritic and NPR. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of