Raging Speedhorn, Scurge, Viking Skull @ Glasgow Cathouse Sun 9th June 2002

[kj]

Review by Shrimpfist aka Gav Revolt

Well what was an excellent gig should have been even better! sunday morning right before leaving for glasgow i checked the speedhorn message board to see who support was, only to find it should have been the mighty Murder One, but they pulled out As a replacement we were treated to Viking Skull. Featuring 3 members of Raging Speedhorn, one of their roadies and a guy who must have been roadying for Scurge banging out a set of what seemed to be old rock covers! (i didnt recognise a single one of the songs)not exactly what we were expecting but a refreshing change all the same. Next up were Scurge. Id never heard of them at all, not even the name but my god they were good. same kind of stuff as RS started out doing stoner/doom with some added hardcore spice, and had a pit going a fair few times for a band Im pretty sure hardly anyone in the audience could have heard of. Lastly, their singer ended the set by taking his top off for the last song only to reveal a nice pair of man breasts...... Anyways all of their songs stomp along on what is essentially the same groove, meaning they should be filed alongside such bands as Charger etc etc.... Got their split ep with Defenestration and both bands sit quite well alongside each other, but Scurges tracks are of much finer quality. And now to Raging Speedhorn. Having seen them back in January with support from Landmine Spring, Candiria & Clutch, i had exceptionally high hopes for the material they were going to air, esp for when they played new song Iron Cobra. Their set kicked off with mostly old songs, but the best response early on came for The Gush. By half way the pishedness of singer Frank Reagan was apparent as he kept telling us how smashed he was, whilst slugging on a bottle of red wine no less. When they eventually played Iron Cobra though, i was highly disappointed. The song Id longed to hear again due to its fantastically dirty Iron Monkey-esque sound had been transformed into this really weird, guitar effect drenched high paced song. As i was sober both back in january and at this gig, I still dont understand how the two versions could sound so different and yet be called by the same name. Anyways, new song The Hate Song, out as a single on June 24th (i think), went down really well. It takes their formula and shortens it so it remains refreshing all the way through. end of night went something like, close with a really well known song. Leave stage, come back on do 1 more song, then leave again. A tad predictable as Reagan said they were gonna do that 3 songs before they did it. Still a classy gig, even if it did mean sacrificing seeing Knuckledust back home in Dundee.