Old formulas can be extremely boring in some ways, because you think that leaders will lead. But when the leaders gave up on their positions of spearheading musical movements, the things become really nasty, and troubles come this way. Leaders must lead, not follow, must be always in the front, inspiring the new generations to come and do something new and outstanding that can surpass their work. RAGING SPEEDHORN, a quintet from Corby, Northamptonshire (UK) could have done a better album than "Lost Ritual". No, they are not bad, really. But their mix between Hardcore with an abrasive insight that comes from Sludge/Groove Metal isn't different from many bands we heard before. It's not bad, mind you all, but it's not really different. I know that the sextet is a veteran act, (the band started its activities back on 1998), but in those days, this form of music already existed.

The sound quality is very good, indeed. Running away from those dirty and raw productions, that only causes the impression that there's a "smoke cloud" in our ears, they have chosen something cleaner and with all the instruments sounding with very good and defined tunes. But don't get the wrong idea: even sounding clean, their songs are pretty aggressive. Besides this fact, we can find in "Lost Ritual" a good album, if we aren't demanding too much. There are good moments on the album, as you can hear on "Bring Out Your Dead" (some good vocals and backing vocals arrangements can be heard), the catchy guitar riffs of "Halfway to Hell", their homage to Lemmy and his gang on "Motörhead" (again, the vocals doi a good job, and the contrast between the tunes of the two vocalists is truly interesting), the harsh work from bass and drums on the tempos of "Dogshit Blues", the aggressive and more Hardcore-influenced parts of "Shit Outta Luck", and the bitter and melodic "Unleash the Serpent". But even having good songs, and the band's work being competent (we can't say that they aren't such a thing), it seems in common with many bands from the same style we heard before.