What the fuck? Raging Speedhorn are back? Obviously, that’s cause for an almighty fuck yeah – Corby’s recalcitrant rockers typically elicit that response – but there’s been no warning. Preparation is needed. Body armour needs to be donned. You can’t just go around dropping Raging Speedhorn albums on people – it’s tantamount to assault.
Nevertheless, here we are – the band seemingly most likely to collapse having drunk its own weight in alcohol has somehow managed to achieve its seventh album which, recorded with studio legend Russ Russell (who also helmed Lost Ritual and Hard To Kill), is a glimmer of light in the darkness of 2025’s opening months.
The Raging Speedhorn of 2025 is something of a changed entity. They’re on a new label for a start – the mighty Spinefarm (home to the likes of Employed to Serve and Bullet For My Valentine) – and they also have a new line up, which sees incoming guitarist Daf Williams joining founding maniacs Frank Regan (vocals), Gordon Morrison (drums), as well as longstanding members Jim Palmer (guitars) and Andy Gilmour (bass), and Dan Cook (vocals). And clearly the injection of new blood has worked, because Night Wolf is an unholy terror.
Yet, for a moment, the band leave you to wonder. Opting for a more restrained opening than might have been expected, Speedhorn resist the temptation to simply bludgeon the listener, allowing Blood Red Sky to slowly haul itself from a mire of heavily overdriven guitars and shimmering cymbals. As a means of setting the mood, it proves mightily effective but of course, when the riff does kick in, it’s rendered with diabolical potency, as subtle melodies find themselves slowly ground under the deftly layered vocals. The band are aided no end in their task by the production and, with Russ’s steady hand at the desk, there’s a power and depth to the album that really brings these blistering pieces to life.
After so crushing a start, the band needed to pull something special out of the bag. Fortunately Buzz Killa rises to the task, the blistering riffs offset by some surprising post elements, although the whole remains heavier than truckload of anvils. Speedhorn are clearly having a blast, too, for a visceral breakdown (complete with “buzz kill” chant) finds them briefly dipping into Soulfly territory, as they once again demonstrate their talent for pairing the monumental with the memorable. With Andy Gilmour indulging a bassline so filthy it should be stored on the top shelf, away from prying eyes, The Blood Code is satisfyingly doom-laden, while the anthemic Can’t Stop wears its anarchic refusal to bow to anything on its grimy sleeve.
The last thing you’d expect from a Raging Speedhorn album is an Elton John reference, but yet here we are with Every Night’s Alright For Fighting, a stabbing belter that nods to the band’s storied past as riot-starters-in-residence. With a chorus that cheerily lodges itself in your increasingly overloaded brain pan, it’s a defiant close to the record’s first half, delivered with a manic glint in its eye and destined, like all the tracks here, to slay in the live environment.
Maintaining the brutal mid-tempo groove, the album’s title track comes out swinging, a lean, mean fighting machine that lands each of its Sabbath flavoured punches before delivering a knock-out chorus that is surprisingly singable. In contrast, the feedback-strewn DOA feels live as fuck, the brief count in giving way to the sort of thing that Pantera might have written circa Vulgar Display, had they only had a good guitar tone. They follow it with another belter – Comin’ In Hard – which comes across as a 50’s rock ‘n’ roll track filtered through the twin influences of Clutch and Orange Goblin, and it is every bit as irresistible as I hope that sounds.
Wiping the shit-eating grin off your face, the gloriously unhinged Dead Men Can’t Dance spits out blood through broken teeth, a towering riff battling against the twin vocals of Frank and Dan (seemingly competing to see who can shred their throat the hardest). The album then finishes with the hook-laden hellscape of Dead Reckoning, a sub-two-minute track that cheerfully announces “we’re going down, straight down to hell” as it yanks the listener in a ominously southward direction.
Raging Speedhorn – you have been missed. Leaving aside the ghastly cover, which looks like something you’d have found graffitied outside of the local disco back in the 80s, Night Wolf is damn near perfect. Like a party crasher with a bottle of Jack, it turns up, batters a few guests before vomiting in the toilet and fucking off again, leaving only a trail of destruction in its wake. With each and every track a potential single, riddled with hooks, and more infectious than a venereal disease in a student dorm, it’ll stick around for days, and when the live dates come… well, stick on that body armour and get yourself down the front. In short, this is fucking awesome – buy a copy. 9/5/10
