It's a shitty day. You're walking past the junkyard feeling just pure mean when you see the mangy pile of fur the yard calls a dog, so just because you can, you toss a rock at the poor thing. You watch, laughing, as the critter slowly and painfully hauls itself to scabby feet, its fur crawling with lice and yellowing, runny eyes struggling to focus on anything. Somehow it sees you, ugly head lolling as it begins a snarl, and before you can reach for that second rock you're hit by a hundred pounds of rancid breath, teeth and meanstreak.
Say hello to Denver, Colorado's Speedwolf, one fantastic junkyard dog of a metal band.
Their debut starts with a brief clatter of drums before a guitar line, dark and mean slowly winds things up until 'Speedwolf' shoots out of the gate. It's a real rattler too; a punk driven engine putting out the kind of energy of the first two Distillers albums, tied and bolted to a metal chassis that has all those beautiful ugly lines of Motorhead, The Stooges circa Raw Power and the insane catchiness of the best NWOBHM street racers. Vocalist (and Splattered Records head) Reed Bremmer has a throat seemingly channelling the spirit of Lemmy and Ben Ward through a thick layer of bad whisky with a real character that burns through. The rhythm section of drummer Richie Tice and bassist Jake Kauffman somehow keep this gloriously dirty speed beast online and together as Kris Wells' guitar cranks out riff after riff of filthy, flying blues based heavy fucking metal with so many hooks you're in shreds by the end of this album.
And it really is a nailbomb of an album: Twelve tracks of whisky snorting, Satan worshipping, sump oil dirty biker insanity where the only thing that doesn't vary is the breakneck pace.
Examples? 'Hell N Back' is their Death Trip; spiky punked up metal with a nihilistic determination to end in flames as a simple, brutally effective riff piles on with some fine bass and lead breaks chucked in. 'I Am The Demon' begins with a Motorhead style drum battery and the compelling vocals keep on pushing until it all explodes in a scream from Hell that is utterly convincing. The title track is a total speed demon, drum beats and notes clambering all over each other but somehow never quite collapsing. 'Out On Bail' is a cracking speed boogie with a mad eyed intent to have as much fun as possible before being caught. Death Ripper adds Bathory meets Venom stained black metal to an already evil brew. Just examples; you really could pick anything from the dozen wrecking blasts on show.
Don't underestimate the songwriting talent on show here either, not for a moment: It takes real skill to make this kind of filthy, basic metal so consistently entertaining over twelve tracks with no drop off in pace and absolutely no filler. Weld that to a playing style that always seems on the edge of simply disintegrating but never does and you have a real gem. They wear their influences proudly on their sleeves but still have exploded out of the darkness fully their own beast.
Honestly, if Speedwolf were a motorcycle they would be the most belligerent of rat bikes; a lethal thing held together by leather, rust, spite and gaffa tape, powered by poisoned whisky and laughing their way towards the inevitable fiery doom.
Frankly Fucking brilliant. Hells Headbangers indeed.
http://www.myspace.com/speedwolfmetal
Gizmo
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