Faster Than the Speed of Light

The first track on the British Metal band Raven's second album, this was a band composition written by their three members: frontman/bass player John Gallagher, his guitarist/brother Mark, and drummer Rob "Wacko" Hunter. The band was going for speed on the album, and wanted to make a statement with the leadoff track. In our interview with John Gallagher, he explained the concept. "That was me reading a whole bunch of physics books," he said. "There were all these things about the possibility of traveling faster than light. Well, this is perfect, a fast song, faster than the speed of light."

Musically, this is a very unusual song. John Gallagher explains: "It's in the key of D, very bright, very not dark. There's not a lot of discord. You hear so many riffs these days which are just, 'Take the most wrong note possible and put it with the next one.' This one was very major in theme and in feel. A lot of breaks."

You might notice some similarities between parts of this song and a middle portion of the 1984 Iron Maiden song "Aces High." The guys from Raven have said that Maiden "ripped off" this passage.