Raging Speedhorn – Raging Speedhorn (2000)

January 10, 2025

It’s always amazed me that a band that is / was so firmly a part of the British underground was also rather successful with “the kids” at the time. Like, when I was a nipper, there was a bunch of smelly goths in my school a year or so older than me and they all fucking loved Raging Speedhorn. I’d imagine Kerrang! having a lot of “blame” for this, as RS were featured often in the weekly mag at the time, but despite all of the nu metal we were all listening to, Raging Speedhorn stood out as something more geniune; afterall, they have far more in common with Iron Monkey than they do with, idk, fucking Mudvayne.

The self-titled album from these guys is a clear and well-produced record, which is not something you’d immediately think of when it comes to sludge metal (I’m looking at you, Eyehategod, for making everyone believe the genre is a soup of drug-addled muddy riffs and stoned drumming), but it works well here, as it has for some other sludge peers who went down the route of clarity, like Grief or idk, Crowbar.

Anyway, let’s not get lost in the weeds here. This is a solid metal album, especially considering the year it was released in – the late 90s/early 00s has not been a period that has generally aged well for metal. If I had to include one complaint about this thing it’d be that there’s too much Phil Anselmo tough guy shit going on (listens to Superjoint Ritual once), but hey, you can’t win them all.

Highlights include “Necrophiliac Glue Sniffer”, “Dungeon Whippet” (I’d love to know what this one’s about!) and the opener, “Super Scud”. Tidy dartses!