Loudness - Hurricane Eyes (1987) - Tatsumaki! - 83% (22/09/12)

After the somewhat lifeless effort that has been the previous record "Shadows Of War / Lightning Strikes", Loudness are back with a way heavier release entitled "Hurricane Eyes" and this album indeed kicks off with a lot of energy.

The opener "SDI" is undeniably one of the band's classic vintage songs and still played at nearly every live show they do today. This song is immediately better than anything from the predecessor. One gets to hear a couple of dynamical guitar and vocal effects that keep the track intriguing through many subtle changes. The epic background vocals as well as the angry main vocals carry this song but the instruments also do a more than solid job. The riffs are crunching, the guitar solos melodic and emotional, the bass guitar pumping and dominant and the drumming is tight and at some points even positively chaotic and fast as hell. This opener is by far the best song on the entire record and one of my favourite classic heavy metal tracks ever.

This doesn't mean that the rest of the record isn't great. In fact, we get a lot of catchy stuff on this album. Especially the mixture of melodic and chaotic moments is a strong factor on the record. One can observe this mixture in the mid tempo banger "This Lonely Heart" that is also crowned by a very versatile vocal performance once again and this element comes also back in the energizing "Strike Of the Sword" where the drum performance is among the best ever done by this band.

The band also delivers a couple of hard rock orientated tracks that are less aggressive. They have a rather commercial attempt and focus on catchy hooks. The lyrics often threat topics such as freedom, lust for life or rebellion. This might sound a little bit stereotypical but the tracks are performed with enough naive charm and musical talent to work out well. Good examples are "Rock This Way" and especially "Rock & Roll Gypsy" that sounds like a mixture of AC/DC and Bon Jovi and I mean this in a quite positive way because commercial rock music back in the days was still rather original.

Loudness have also put two ballads on their record but they don't come close to the emotionally driven tracks they have done in the past. "In My Dreams" still has some potential thanks to a truly angelic vocal performance that makes you want to put your lighters on while the closing "So Lonely" is only of an average quality.

The most original track on the album comes along with "In This World Beyond". It delivers us a solid dose of heavy metal featuring an intriguing dark and even slightly apocalyptic vibe that creates a gripping atmosphere from the beginning to the end. The band should have tried out more small experiments of that atmospheric kind instead of putting a few exchangeable metal tracks on this release such as "Take Me Home" or "Hungry Hunter".

In the end, this record is a big step forward for the Japanese heavy metal legend after a weaker album. Especially the vocals are performed with more versatility than ever before and give a very emotional touch to the release. Instrumentally, the drums sound better and more diversified than before. Bass and guitar vary more between the extremes of commercial, melodic and soft parts on one side and aggressive, chaotic and fast passages on the other side. This record is not the band's best release but still among the better stuff they've recorded and contains a couple of classics such as "SDI" that still happen to be relevant nowadays. In my humble opinion, any metal fan of the eighties should call this record her or his own.