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Loudness
Japanese hard rock band
Soldier Of Fortune ()
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Guitarist Akira Takasaki's Japanese thrash metal band. Possibly the only Japanese metal band that have had success in the US. This album was the first with an American singer, Mike Vescera. (I think he sang on one other album). So.. Japanese thrash eh? Probably wierd and dodgy? Not at all! Takasaki can shred like there's no tommorow and proceeds to do so all over the album!! He's a bit of a freak - holy crap, it's such a tragedy that he isn't more well known over here. Really melodic, fast, and lots of harmonies - brilliant. If you are a guitarist, it's worth getting this album and just fast-forwarding to the solo's! Most of the songs are high energy, fast thrash. Really great! A few songs are a bit cheesy. There's a few ballads here that suffer from the inevitable 80's three million vocal overdubs. Would be great to hear some of these songs live, without all of the post-production. Loudness have released heaps of albums (since '81), of which I have none (except this one). Which is not too surprising, considering that you have to get them on import and pay mega $$ for them. Bummer. Anyway. They are going to release a DVD pretty soon, and I've seen a few preview clips, it looks pretty cool! Their latest album, "Racing" (2004) sounds like mega monster thrash and should be great. If you want to find more out about Loudness, do a search for their band members:Akira Takasaki - Guitar, Minoru Niihara - Vocals, Masayoshi Yamashita - Bass, Munetaka Higuchi - Drums Akira had his own website for a while but it seems to be down right now. |
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