Raging Speedhorn - 'We Will Be Dead Tomorrow' (ZTT)
3/5
By: Toby L
Raging Speedhorn have risen over the last couple of years with the mere reputation of 'Britain's heaviest act'. However, if the evidence in play on their second LP, the romantically-titled 'We Will Be Dead Tomorrow', is anything to go by, then the six metallers are looking to change that - and become known at least as the world's most destructively ear-bashing, loud noise-fetishists.
And such idealism is refreshing, really. With the UK dependent on sources outside of its own shores for such rousing riots of churning guitar, desperate, shouty vocals and a pounding cacophony of drums and bass, it's truly time that such notables as RS rise from the groundwork of their debut eponymous full-length endeavour and heighten the expectations of Euro-rock.
Where they particularly succeed in their nuclear war-esque assault of full-throttle angst-anthems is via the fusion of unlikely influences within the most inventive and thoughtful of structures; from the compelling opener of 'The Hate Song', complete with snarling Black Flag-distortion, passing through to the chilling highlight of 'Heartbreaker', following a de-tour past the freaky bulkiness of 'Iron Cobra', right on to the chilling close of 'Ride With The Devil', the journey throughout is hazardously enticing (if exhausting).
Yet, it's not just the sextet's penchant for gruelling riffs and Zeppelin-styled overtures that wins them accolade; alongside the somewhat amusing lyrics (which most certainly reside too distinctively on the pleasures of smoking, ahem, various substances, and the general shadiness of life), intelligent, swaths of layered guitar litter throughout, drenching the record in the bleak and morbid, allowing such aptly-named tales as 'Welcome To Shitsville' or 'Spitting Blood' to shine in all of their gleaming black glory... It's as far from Will Young as possible, in short. Good.
Whilst never likely to penetrate nor subvert the mainstream, the Ragers look set to heighten their status with this competent, if largely challenging, collision of extreme-rock, establishing themselves as one of the most adventurous and finest exports that the Brits have got in such a field... Await their future works with as much fear as excitement.
Artists in this article: Raging Speedhorn
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