Devil Soldier ~ 戦慄の奇蹟

Oh, boy. Here I was hoping that the second Loudness album would be an improvement on the first. Unfortunately, what do I find? The songs that seem to have respectable lyrics are boring. And the songs that carry some level of interest and power have Engrish lyrics which would have been embarrassing even to the most poofy-haired makeup-caked glitter-drenched LA glam bands in 1982.

Again, I listen to these early Loudness albums, and I am struck with just how overrated these guys are. Note I didn’t say ‘bad’. Takasaki and Niihara are clearly musically talented, as I have said before. They obviously have great chemistry together. They are on the same wavelength. They know how to rock out. Takasaki can lay down some really sweet licks, particularly on songs like ‘Hard Workin’’ and ‘Devil Soldier’. But there’s simply nothing on these albums that justifies these albums being placed anywhere close to the top tier, what other bands were doing in a similar vein at the time.

However: I just want to shout out to ‘Devil Soldier’ here for just being a straight-up kick-ass song – and that’s largely because it’s mostly instrumental and features the instrumentalists playing off each other at a galloping pace for most of the seven minutes. But some of the other longer songs with significant instrumental sections, like ‘After Illusion’, are kind of faceless sleepers. And the songs that hold melodic interest are hampered by half-English lyrics which have a delivery problem.

I see these guys as being similar to the Scorpions, Mötley Crüe, Ratt – other bands that were playing metallic hard rock with a commercial gloss. But while the Scorpions were blowing up their ‘Dynamite’, the Crüe were taking a ‘Piece of Your Action’, and Ratt were… well, still munching cheese in the cellar… Niihara was singing ‘Sweet, sweet honey! Baby, my girl! Deep, deep, deep night, all night long!’ In broken English. With complete conviction.

I should say here that there’s nothing inherently wrong with Engrish. Or, indeed, with silly or cheesy music. A lot of this music would in fact be a lot more palatable if the performers weren’t divas who take themselves quite so straight-laced serious. They should have taken their own advice: ‘Look at yourself, and try your luck.’ Devil Soldier would be a hell of a lot more tolerable if it had, in other words, more of a tongue-in-cheek GWAR or Manowar factor to it.

Imagine the difference I’m talking about this way. There’s the guys who go to a KTV bar to get drunk, sing the tunes that everyone knows, just generally have a good time – maybe hit on one of the bar-girls if they think they can get lucky. And then there’s this nerdy pocket-protectored white-collar middle-management guy in the group who just gets way too into it and just goes flat out showing off how well he can pull out the stops – even though it’s lost on him that he’s just at a KTV bar singing with his friends.

Loudness is that guy. They’re performing these songs that there’s simply no earthly way to take seriously… and they’re taking them way too seriously for their own good. It’s abundantly clear that Niihara Minoru is a talented singer. But how he can deliver these ridiculous, stupid, braindead lyrics like on ‘Angel Dust’ or ‘Hard Workin’’ or (ugh) ‘Girl’ with not just a straight face but evidently a complete lack of self-awareness is beyond me. It’s to the point where I’m not sure it’s a cultural thing or what, but the incongruity just hits me in the face every time.

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