I guess the best way to describe Raging Speedhorn's music, is to say that it's a bridge between the old metal and the new metal. The album is very easily comprehended and it doesn't demand your full attention (although it most certainly deserves it). Nowadays when the musicmarket is so overcrowded by bands who stick with their old "true" style, and nu-metal bands that often sound like pop with a little distortion, we need something to keep it all together. Raging Speedhorn is the answer. They gracefully mix heavy metal, thrash and sometimes devastating death vocals, with new hardcore, punk, rock and metal. The music is probably not technically that hard to play, but there's some sort of honesty to it, and I can actually hear how much the guys love make music.

The song that sticks out the most is probably the ballad "Heartbreaker". The guitars play a classical chain of chords, the drums follow in a halftempo beat, while there's growl on top of that. It has been done before, but it rarely comes out this good. Impressive. Another favourite track is "Spitting Blood" that starts out as pure thrash, becomes groovy rock, and goes back to thrash again. I almost couldn't sit still!

All in all, the album provides quick changes in tempo, energy all the way through and that variation in the vocals, that I like so much. The only thing that could use a little bit more thought are the guitars. The riffs are too few and too similar. For example the outro riff in the second track; "Scrapin' The Resin" and the intro riff in the third track; "Me And You Man" are almost identical, except for the change in key. If you have two riffs that are alike, at least don't put them one after another. That's something that I thought about throughout the entire album. Sometimes a song only contains two riffs, which sometimes is slightly boring. Other than that I, surprisingly enough, don't have any other complaints.

written by Ilinca Vintila

Playing time: 54.11