Iif you're partial to a bit of the heavy stuff then you might like this album - a lot.

Loudness can trace their ancestry back to the very early 80’s when messrs Mumetaka Higuchi, Akira Talasaki, Minoru Niihara and Masayoshi Yamashira joined forces to form what many agree to be Japans best metal band ever. Over the years many people have joined and left the band, including singer Mike Vescera and bassist Neil Murray, though even with all the line-up changes Loudness still kept going and a full reformation of the original band took place in 2000. Sadly Mumetaka Higuchi passed away in 2008 having been afflicted with cancer. The band decided to keep touring and pushing the name of Loudness ever onward in his honour and with twenty-four studio albums under their belts Loudness return with number twenty-five ‘Eve To Dawn’.

Now I don’t profess to own all of the Loudness CDs, so I am unable to comment on how heavy they have been at different times in their career but the ones I do own are no where near as loud or brash as this new album by the band. This heaviness though really suits Loudness and the songs on ‘Eve To Dawn’ and the metal that bursts out from the stereo as you play this album is in danger of taking your face clean off (sorry Mr Eastwood). Just put on the track ‘Survivor’ and feel your facial skin start to tear at the edges as the wall of guitars hits you head on like a charging bull and tramples you into the ground. Subtlety isn’t this album’s biggest strong point, though that is I think in its favour. Other tracks that hammer at you over and over driving their message into your brain like a spike are ‘The Power Of Truth’, ‘Come Alive Again’, ‘Keep You Burning’ and ‘Gonna Do It My Way’. However, what I found especially pleasing was the fact that even as heavy and metal orientated as this album is, Loudness never forget the need for melody, which can be found on each of the choruses found on ‘Eve To Dawn’.

You’d think that after all the band have been through and all the years that they have been working that they would sound a little jaded and just be making albums for the sake of it. Loudness have, with ‘Eve To Dawn’ proved that this really isn’t so in their case because there is a youthful hunger running through the songs on this CD and the attitude and energy found on its tracks belies a band with such a long history.

Loudness are back and if you’re partial to a bit of the heavy stuff then you might like this album - a lot…

Ian Johnson