Raging Speedhorn – Nightwolf (Review)

Raging Speedhorn are a sludge metal band from the UK and this is their seventh album.

Following on from 2016’s Lost Ritual and 2020’s Hard to Kill, we’re now treated to the 35-minute Nightwolf. Raging Speedhorn are such a great, fun band, that a new album from this act is always a treat.

Raging Speedhorn are full of confident bravado, backed up by an ear for a good tune. The band know how to throw out the riffs and craft a strong hook, and Nightwolf is once again chock full of the things. It’s an album of swagger and belligerence, driven by huge sludgy groove and crushing metallic weight.

An attitude-filled mix of sludge, doom metal, punk, and stoner rock, Nightwolf encapsulates the Raging Speedhorn sound, but also develops it. It’s so quintessentially Raging Speedhorn, yet with a modern sound that they have been building to for years. The band have forged a personality like few others in the sludgy heavy music realm, and they manifest this throughout Nightwolf with ease. This new collection of songs is especially potent.

Although the band have a well-defined core sound, I like that Nightwolf enhances this with a few creative touches here and there. This might be a moment of reflective texture, the use of more diverse vocals, or bursts of rock ‘n’ roll piano, as just some examples; it all adds to the Raging Speedhorn formula. This, and the strength of the songwriting overall, helps Nightwolf to not only have an identity of its own in the band’s formidable discography, but also for each song to have a discernible character within the whole.

I’ve been listening to Raging Speedhorn since their debut album came out way back in 2000, and am unashamedly a fan. So, without any objectivity at all, I can confidently say that this is a great record that’s damn good fun to listen to. Heavy riffs, crushing songs, and more hooks than you can disentangle yourself from easily. What’s not to like?

Top stuff!