RAGING SPEEDHORN - Before The Sea Was Built

10 songs
28:30 minutes
***** *
Steamhammer / SPV

Bandpage

I’ve always been counting Raging Speedhorn among Britain’s most important and promising brutal metal bands. Only The Haunted have been more appealing than them. The band has so far released three great albums, and especially their last one, How The Great Have Fallen, was a masterpiece.

Unfortunately I can’t say the same about Before The Sea Was Built. It’s not is if Raging Speedhorn have become worse songwriters and performers than in the past, but the new record seems to suffer from a lack of motivation. First of all, it’s not even half an hour long, which is much shorter than in the past. Three songs (Everything Changes, The Last Comet From Nothingness, Who Will Guard The Guards?) have too long intros, giving the impression that the band tried this way to artificially make the album longer than it really is.

There are still two singers in the band, but the new one is sounding quite like the other one so that it becomes quite hard to make out the differences. The opener Everything Changes instantly promises that Raging Speedhorn won’t be the same as before. This dark sludgy track is far from being the band’s most exciting track. Choosing this song as a starter was an unwise decision as Raging Speedhorn have better material on the album. Sound Of Waves is a psychotic track with attractive guitar playing, Born To Twist The Knife is a dark screamo attack with metalcore parts. What nearly all tracks have in common is their simple and uncompromising pattern.

Before The Sea Was Built would be an ok album for a newcomer band. But as I’m quite familiar with Raging Speedhorn’s past, I’m a little disappointed and hope that the future will lead them back to their basics.