Loudness - The Law of Devil's Land~魔界曲章 (1983) - A solid homage to the Western rock and metal idols - 77% (03/11/11)

"The Law Of Devil's Land" is somehwat the Japanese version of Iron Maiden's "The Number Of The Beast". The doom narration part of the opening "Theme Of Loudness" reminds quite a lot the title track from the British metal legends and the first riffs recall the band's first epic "Phantom Of The Opera" from their very first full length release. "Show Me The Way" sounds like another rhythm orientated Iron Maiden epic with some majestic high pitched choirs and amazing guitar solos in the middle part and especially the brilliant album highlight "Mister Yes Man" is a homage to Iron Maiden classics like the half ballads "Murders In The Rue Morgue" and especially "Children Of The Damned". That's not quite original but very entertaining and should please to a larger public than the band's first two outputs did. Loudness almost equal their idols here and this merits a lot of respect.

But Loudness hasn't completely thrown aboard its very own qualities and varies from faster metal tracks like "In The Mirror", the Judas Priest influenced title classic metal track "The Law Of The Devil's Land" or the energizing album closer "Speed" that resumes quite well its qualities by its own title to more commercially orientated hard rock songs like the soft filler "I Wish You Were Here" or the Scorpions homage "Sleepless Nights". Any fan of traditional melodic heavy metal will also adore "Black Wall" which is filled with many intense guitar solos.

The only missing thing to make an amazing album out of a very solid and entertaining one is the unqiueness and originality. Loudness don't need to copy their Western idols as they do here as they just sounded perfect to me on their first two outputs and that's why I consider this record as their weakest one amongst them. It's addicting but somewhat faceless. It's acceptable as an experiment to try out something new and an understandable progress but nevertheless a step back after all. From a commercial point of view, this album could have been sold very well anywhere in the world. It sounds quite coherent but also less experimental and Japanese. Loudness lost a little bit of their image to get internationally accepted and looking back at this output, the band should not have done this but they were young and the high quality of the songs included on this release are a more than good excuse in the end.