Raven kicked off “Faster Than the Speed of Light” with a warning about how Einstein was wrong, and while that may seem presumptuous, these Newcastle upon Tyne natives proved with their second album that massive riffs can cause a distortion in space-time. Their “athletic rock” certainly worked out for them here. “Bring the Hammer Down” and “Live at the Inferno” helped test the theory that heads could in fact bang fast enough to tear open a wormhole.

– Jeff Treppel