Review by Daniel for Speedwolf - Ride With Death (2011)

I first discovered Denver-based speed metal four-piece Speedwolf while selecting tracks for the monthly The Pit Spotify playlist in mid-2021 & quite enjoyed what I heard. The opening title track from their sole 2011 full-length album “Ride With Death” opened in very similar fashion to the highly influential opener from Metallica’s seminal 1983 debut album “Kill ‘Em All before burning off at high speed & it was hard not to buy into the band’s ability to simply not give a fuck. I casually pencilled Speedwolf in as a band to check out at some point & received further encouragement when their more traditional heavy metal number “Up All Night” popped up in a subsequent playlist later on that year. Would the rest of “Ride With Death” live up that potential though? Let’s take a look & find out.

Well, I was always confident that “Ride With Death” would open well with the two tracks I was already familiar with leading off in quick succession but the first thing that any reasonably well educated metalhead will discover is the blatantly obvious Motörhead worship going on as Speedwolf have clearly been guilty of placing the godfathers of filthy speed metal on a lofty pedestal. Frontman Reed Bruemmer does a stellar job at replicating Lemmy’s signature grunt but gives it his own twist which leaves him sounding a little more sinister in my opinion while (much like their idols) some of the punky open-string riffs have a little more to do with hardcore & hard rock than they do with metal. Richie Tice’s wonderful machine-gun style double kick work does an excellent job at erasing any tendency to look outside of the metal space when tagging “Ride With Death” however & his performance is one of the highlights of the Speedwolf sound as he goes about ensuring that the band sound as tight as a motherfucker throughout this 41 minute effort with workman-like efficiency.

The production job on “Ride With Death” is spot on for this style of music by effectively highlighting Speedwolf’s unbridled energy through the relentless barrage of up-tempo thrashers. There’s a consistent clarity to the album that doesn’t ever detract from the authenticity of the band’s 80’s focused sound with Tice's powerful kick-drum sound remaining the centrepiece with which the rest of the music is built around. The album is also helped by some high quality performances from the other band members who show a lot more technique & attention to detail than most of their speed metal peers which is probably the main differentiator with a band like Speedwolf. They’re very much a modern take on an old concept.

If speed metal is essentially the mid-point between thrash metal & traditional heavy metal then Speedwolf sit right bang on the line between the two & are arguably the one of the purest bands in the speed metal crowd. Their speed-freak mentality is rarely diluted too much, despite the inclusion of a few tracks that I regard as being closer to heavy metal than to genuine speed metal (see “Up All Night”, “Time To Annihilate” & “Hell & Back”). Speedwolf's  tempos are much more in line with thrash than they are with heavy metal but the use of open-string (rather than palm-muted) riffs definitely has a different timbre to thrash metal & the regular inclusion of melodic lead guitar lines also sees things being pulled back by the heavy metal crowd. Never fear thrashers, you still get your fair share of palm-muted tremolo-picking when the band decide to drop the shackles but they've adopted a mixture of both approaches here which makes it hard to pick a winner. The only obvious change-up track comes in the form of "Death Ripper" which sees Speedwolf heading into black 'n' roll territory temporarily with Bruemmer pivoting towards a blackened snarl to good effect which is a welcome addition.

This is punky & quite repetitive metal music for a working class audience & makes for the perfect soundtrack for drunken bar fights between scary looking biker types. It’s relatively simple in its conception & execution but possesses a class & professionalism that boosts it above a lot of the competition. Even though the album isn’t all that lengthy, the twelve song tracklisting does feel a bit long, mainly due to the lack of variety on offer. It’s also a bit unfortunate that Speedwolf chose to end things with the weakest track on the album in the unintelligent “Denver 666” which isn't done any favours by being positioned right after the excellent title track (the clear standout track on the album for mine). Still… I can’t deny that I had a lot of fun with “Ride With Death”. Is it enough to see me wanting to return to it regularly though? I doubt it as it just doesn’t offer enough depth for that but I can’t see it disappointing too many people either.

For fans of Motörhead, Midnight & Venom.