Speed Queen - ...with a Bang!

 Let's look into another album today! I have one of my personal favourite releases of 2025 lined up for this one. It's the album "...with a Bang!" by Speed Queen. Speed Queen is a heavy/speed metal band from Belgium and this album is their first full length! And what a great way to get started. 
I've been following Speed Queen for a couple of years now. I first heard of them when I saw them open for Night Demon in 2023. Then earlier this year I saw them live once again, opening for Mega Colossus this time at Musicon in Den Haag. Before we get into the album I want to mention that that was a fantastic show. They played in front of maybe 30 or so people. But they had the energy as though they were playing in a sold out stadium. I especially enjoyed the way the lead singer Thomas Kenis was manually controlling the stage effects during the set. But let me not get sidetracked too much and let's get into the album!

One thing I noticed as soon as I first put this album on is that it feels a lot fuller compared to their previous material. Everything feels bigger. They did not pull any punches when it comes to making every instrument sound huge in the mix. I have to say that this is a big improvement over the previous releases where the production quality would feel a bit shallow at times.
We begin with a short little interlude that flows into the first full song "Showdown". And let me tell you, within seconds of the song starting I found myself saying "Oh we're in for a good time, aren't we?". This song starts a trend that returns a lot throughout this album where we get a lot of great moments that are really fun to shout along to. The part in this song where the backing vocals say "Showdown, tonight!" is probably my favourite example on the album of this. 
Everything on this album is very tight, you don't get a lot of time to breathe here which is honestly exactly how I like it. However there is also a lot of nuance there that break things up a little bit. For example the song "Eye to Eye" takes a slightly slower approach into a more traditional heavy metal style while also taking some more time to show off what the guitar player can do compared to other songs. This track in particular felt very Iron Maiden to me. But it's still very much Speed Queens own sound you're listening to. 
"Skygazers" is another track that leans more into the old school heavy metal style. After that point we go back into the speed metal again for the rest of the album though. I have to say I really enjoy the guitar playing throughout this album. The guitarist seems like a very versatile player based on what I can hear on this release which was confirmed for me even more when I saw the band live earlier this year. 
The vocal style feels very much like the "you either love it or you hate it" type of style which is very common in these types of bands. I personally really enjoy the vocals though. I always have to praise when the vocals seem very masterful but at the same time there's also a huge raw edge to it that really brings home the agressiveness of this type of music. Combine that with the vocalists great on stage energy and you have an extremely fun band on your hands with Speed Queen.

Some last thoughts on the album. I think this is a fantastic way to make your full length debut. The band has existed for over 10 years and you can tell that they really took their time to refine their sound and perfect their production quality before deciding to finally put a full length album out into the world. And I think this was definitely for the better. You don't have to release an album until you're fully satisfied with what you've produced and it seems like that was exactly the goal with this one. 

With that I'm going to call it a post. You know what would be great? Speed Queen touring together with fellow Belgian speed metal greats Evil Invaders and Bütcher. I would buy a ticket to that show so fast. I'd even go to multiple shows on that tour if I could.

Bring 'em to the pit!