50%
Immortal Sense—Call it Anything (2010)
Details
In their home country of Japan the band are know as Enema but are promoted as Immortal Sense internationally.
Produced by Immortal Sense. Recorded at Yellow Knife Studios. Mixed by Takeshi Amada. Mastered by Yoshio Miyamoto. Released on Rising Records, 2010.
Band
The album sleeve notes are in Japanese, so according to Last.fm this is the line-up. Apologies if it’s wrong.
- Katsuya Nakaoka — Vocals
- Masatoshi Kurosawa — Guitar
- Michiaki Ueno — Guitar
- Taisei Mikame — Bass
- Tomoyuki Yamaguchi — Drums
Tracks
- Boukoku no Sanbika (亡国の賛美歌)
- Immortal sense
- Self projection
- Dual
- Loop
- Low down
- Soutai no Rensa (相対の連鎖)
- Sepenbanka (千変挽歌)
- War to myself
- Requiem for doom
Review
You know how Iron Maiden’s The Final Frontier (2010) opens with “Satellite 15… the final frontier” which sounds absolutely nothing like the rest of the album? Well, that’s what this album is like.
Opening track “Boukoku no Sanbika” (亡国の賛美歌) is a 9 minutes 49 seconds epic that opens with a gentle exercise in arpeggios and delay. Brian May hasn’t gone unnoticed in the land of the rising sun. The song might have an almost indie feel to it, if it wasn’t already overflowing with elements of progressive and death metal. In my opinion it is by far the best song on the album. More of that please.
The rest of the album is a cheerful jaunt through various extreme metal and NWOBHM influences. The guitar tone is splendid: warm valve amps pushed to overdrive. It would be interesting to hear the songs sung rather than gruffly half-shouted. This could be a whole different beast with a Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) or Kai Hansen (Helloween).
Conclusion
To my ears, and taste, the vocals let this album down. The songs deserve more than being coughed through. But there you have it: it’s their band and not mine.
I’ll be satisfied with the opening track and leave it at that. I’d give that track an imaginative 85%. The rest of the album will have to make do with as less shiny:
Review score: 50%