Hands down, (musicality and personalities aside), Corby sludge metal lunatics, Raging Speedhorn, have the finest band name in Christendom and with their ‘Sniff Glue, Worship Satan’ merch design, they also take top honours in the best laugh out loud, piss taking and imaginative merch designs this side of Autopsy. You can probably smell the bonhomie from here when it comes to Raging Speedhorn and me. As per usual, back story and context come well before any semblance of a critique (if you can call it that). RS and I go way, way back, and their rise through the squalid shit holes of the London and Northampton toilet venue scene, conflates with mine as fledgling journalist, freelancing my way through numerous magazines including Rocksound, Terrorizer and occasional DJ on Total Rock. Now, I am not comparing, nor contrasting myself with the band, but it seemed we were both circling each other in numerous friendship groups via mutual acquaintances at that time.
I have lost count of the number of times, I have either interviewed them, seen them play or drank with various RS members over the years and they were always good company, a fantastic live act and mischievous, piss taking bastards who did not give one single fuck about anything aside from slaying on stage and drinking their own bodyweight in booze. But it would be remiss and disingenuous to suggests that their reputation for mayhem ran roughshod over their music which was a brutal exercise in UK sludge, hardcore and metal, fronted by the fearsome two headed vocal attack of John Loughlin and Frank Regan.
Their debut album, a self-titled masterpiece, was released in 2000 and it is still a thing of absolute beauty today, coursing with venom, tar thick guitars, snarling vocals and a bowel shakingly beautiful bass sound. Other albums followed, as did band members as others excited stage left, until the law of diminishing returns in relation to musical endeavours (although I would argue that 2007’s left field space/post rock effort ‘How The Sea Was Built’ was very unfairly over looked and it was close to being a masterpiece) caught up with them until just founding member drummer Gordon Morrison was left standing.
But onto today and via their own label, Red Weed Records, comes this, Speedhorn’s sixth full length effort, building on a resurgence in popularity over the last few years off the back of a hugely impressive re-union with their original line up at the Electric Ballroom a few years ago, ‘Hard To Kill’ is a fitting title for an album that sees the band doing what they do best and that’s to peddle a brutal, sludge, mid paced stomp metal, bookended with some growled and snarled vocals. Any good? Well, it is very definitely Raging Speedhorn, as the familiar guitar tones, pounding drums and dual vocal attack pound down like a mortar attack. The production values are a hundred miles away from their debut effort and although everything sounds crystal clear and resonates, something at the back of mind has hankering for the down and dirty, production of yesteryear. But that is my problem.
The songs are all good, balls out stompers but interestingly, the one tune that really stands out is the aptly titled ‘Brutality’ that slows the pace down from mid-tempo to slow and crawling, like a squirrel hit by a car and is missing his legs and bottom of his spine. It comes replete with an outro that sounds like early Will Haven with a soupcon of Iron Monkey (whom the band were often equated to back in the day). The next track also has much in common with it’s title ‘The Beast’, which further slows the pace, into a Cathedral like waltz of doom that you can hear the resin popping and slick vocals caked in angst and hate, spill from your speakers. Undoubtedly, it’s the latter half of the album that really leaves a size ten impression on you (I’m not including the cover of T-Rex’s ‘Children Of The Revolution’ which although competent, feels like an overindulgence but will probably help with getting this album the attention it deserves).
In summary, for a band that has a special place in my heart for a myriad of reasons, this is not a recreation of past glories, but a reimagining of a band (quite literally given it only has one original member left within its ranks) and a sound that is equal parts old, new, fresh and exciting. It has a short, sharp, punch to the guts about it. The album managed to retain enough aspects of the original DNA (nee sound) of the band, to titillate and engage whilst attempting something different. It’s a perilous road that the band have trodden of late and many wouldn’t have attempted to keep going, but credit to Gordon and the rest of Raging Speedhorn 2.0, in writing an album that not only salves those hankering for past glories, but also manages to incorporate something new and invigorating into the mix. It may lack, at times, the grit, grime and vitriol of past efforts but it’s a stonkingly groovy, rocky, heavy, sludgy metal party that everyone is invited to.
(8/10 Nick Griffiths)
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