By Monk
They say that good things come to those who wait, and the Northamptonshire pioneers of downtuned hardcore-infused thunderous sludge certainly have made us wait – five long years in fact – to prove why they remain one of the consistently dominant forces on the ÜK metal scene over the past quarter of a century.
This seventh album is something of a landmark moment for the band, as it is the first in a long time which has been recorded with anything approaching a stabilized line-up: predecessor ‘Hard To Kill‘ (which defiantly proved to live up to its rather prophetic title) was delivered in the midst of transition, with founding co-vocalist John Loughlin quitting in the early stages of the recording process and Dan Cook taking up the reins for the remainder of the sessions. But now, with both Cook and new guitarist Daf Williams firmly ensconced in the RSH camp (to the extent that the latter wrote two of the ten songs), there is a sense of long overdue cohesion and clarity to what has now emerged into the dark light of day…
It is perhaps fitting that it is one of Williams’ compositions, ‘Blood Red Sky’, which kicks off the album, heralding as it does a new era for the band. There is an immediate sense of unbridled aggression, the riff smashing its way out of the speakers and straight into your cranium, the twin vocals in turn snapping and snarling over a dense broiling backdrop that signifies and symbolizes the aural experience that is to come.
‘Buzz Killa’ sees RSH stray about as far from their underpinning doom/sludge sound as they are ever likely to venture, with its pure double-edged punky thrashiness while still retaining, but restraining, that underlying heaviness, especially on the stabbing riff and beatdown percussion. And then the heavy-ass bass intro of ‘The Blood Code’ kicks in, it’s bottom-ended Sabbath-esque refrain re-introducing us to those darker, denser aspects of the RSH, simultaneously slowing things right down from the sheer frenetic-ism of what has gone before while at the same time offering no respite from the inexorable momentum which the album builds.
This is continued on ‘Can’t Stop’, which, despite its title, maintains the slightly slower pace, built over another bubbling, rolling bass line, before latest single ‘Every Night’s Alright For Fighting’ explodes into gloriously effervescent technicolour punk ‘n’ roll life, twisting and turning in and around itself like a luchador executing a 360° frogsplash.
The album’s title track growls and snarls like its subject matter with the smell of a helpless prey in its nostrils, slowly circling and encroaching still further before, fuelled by another of those absolutely HUGE bass lines that dominate the album, edging in for the kill, which it effects with ruthless efficiency.
‘DOA’ is another slice of hardcore fury, coupled with another ‘banging bass line, another dense winding riff and, this time. backed by a massive gang vocal, before the album’s surprise package hits us square between the eardrums. ‘Comin’ In Hard’ has a very latterday nu-metal feel to it, lying somewhere between a faster/heavier Disturbed (probably not the greatest comparison in the current Draiman-dissing climate) and a leaner FFDP, producing certainly the catchiest/poppiest moments on the album.
Overall, ‘Night Wolf’ is a cohesive but disparate album. It is one which, as intimated above, echoes and reflects the cohesion and confidence of a band comfortable in their own identity and their collective and individual abilities to push things to the limits. At the same time, the latter is just what they do, pushing their own boundaries, and similarly our own levels of expectation, by taking unexpected diversions (which we perhaps should have anticipated) into wider sonic soundscapes that surprise, enlighten and reward.
Answer the howl of the night wolf. Let it sink its teeth into you. You will not regret the transformative experience.
- ‘Night Wolf‘ will be released on Friday (7 March).
- Raging Speedhorn also kick off their latest tour, with support from Kill The Lights, on Friday (7 March):
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