75%
Raging Speedhorn—Before The Sea Was Built (2007)
Details
Recorded at Foel Studio, Llanfair Caereinon, North Wales during two weeks in April 2007. Mastered by Russ Russell at Loud as Feck Studios a few days later. Engineered and edited by Charlie Dorman. Assisted by Chris Fielding. Produced and mixed by Larry Hibbitt.
Released on 7 September 2007 on SPV Records.
Tracks
- Everything changes
- Before the sea was built
- Dignity stripper
- Mishima
- Last comet from nothingness
- Born to twist the knife
- Who will guard the guards?
- Too drunk to give a fuck
- Sound of waves
- Jump ship
Review
My two-and-a-half year old twin boys Reuben and Joshua were sitting on my desk last week when Reuben picked up a CD case. “What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s a CD,” I replied.
“What’s a CD?” asked his twin brother.
“It’s got music on it,” I explained.
“What music?” Reuben enquired.
“It’s by a band called Raging Speedhorn.”
“I LOVE Raging Speedhorn,” exclaimed Reuben.
“Me too,” chimed Joshua
Reuben again, “Raging Speedhorn is my favourite. Is it your favourite too?”
“Erm… no,” I began, “In fact, I’ve not listened to it yet. I need to listen to it and then review it for my 195 metal CDs blog.”
Obviously feeling that he’d not got his point across emphatically enough, Joshua repeated, “I like Raging Speedhorn.”
“Good,” I said,”I’ll bear that in mind when I’m reviewing it.”
An astute pair, I’d say. Having listened to them for the best part of two weeks now, I think I can confidently say “I like Raging Speedhorn” too.
The album builds quietly and steadily. Opening track “Everything Changes” kicks off with a really pretty strummed chord progression. Guitar, bass and drums until about 90 seconds in the guitars die away and then… drums, drums, and the vocals kick in.
It wasn’t until I’d listened to the track a couple of times that I looked up Wikipedia to find more about Raging Speedhorn. I had one question: how many vocalists do they have?!
And sure enough: two. That explains the almost conversational feel to some of their tracks. Like question and answer; preces and response.
It’s so good to hear such quality British metal, and from a band that doesn’t feel that it needs to restrict itself to a conventional four or five piece set-up. It’s odd because since I was eight years old I’ve sung in choirs. Small church choirs, larger regional choirs, and for eight years the National Youth Choir of Great Britain which numbered at times up to 140 singers. Odd then that I should consider it unusual that this band has more than one!
A shame that they are no more, however, having split in 2008.
I thought that the vocals would annoy me as I’m not really into that hardcore-inspired ‘shouting’ style of vocals. But somehow with the quality of this music and with two vocalists it just works. I could listen to it all day.
Conclusion
For me the stand-out tracks are the opener “Everything Changes” and track #7 “Who will guard the guards” which slows things down a bit and has a wonderful, twisting guitar riff.
Review score: 75%