Deathly Fighter

It's kind of hard to rate a 7" when it's the only thing the band has released, other than shitty live recordings that can be had on an even shittier bootleg. I'm sure most GISM fans are aware of this R.U.G. record, anyone else stumbling upon this by accident, if you're a fan of traditional Japanese metal, I highly recommend this.

The vocals here are nothing at all like Sakevi's crazy barks and grunts, here we have a melodic voice that, sadly, I can't compare to anyone else. Maybe similar to Minoru, from Loudness, and some Kiichi from Sabbrabells, who was later in GISM-having Kiichi sing would have been fucking cool. It's not that the vocals aren't decent, it's just that Ronny doesn't really go for it, this voice has no balls.

I don't remember the bass at all, so who cares. Drums are okay, nothing special, they keep a beat, so that's cool. Okay, the reason everyone is here, Randy's guitar playing. The album opens with Deathly Fighter, it's more heavy metal than punk but still has a punk rock feel to it, kind of like a sped up M.A.N. song. You can tell Randy really wanted to flaunt his guitar skills on this project, and the Rhoads worship shines bright. The solos here are still full of trills and taps, as on Detestation, but there's more structure here and better ideas.

Next up is Crazy Bomber. If Sakevi had been grunting to himself on this song it would have fit perfectly on M.A.N. The vocal harmony is pretty decent, the riffs are decent, what makes me love this song so much is the amazing soloing. For about the last minute we have nothing but soloing, none of Ronny's voice to get in the way! What I love about Uchida's style, like Rhoads, he doesn't just masturbate the strings with shred crud, every note seems to be meticulously placed to bring out a feeling of melancholy... yeah, I can't think of any other way to describe it. Japanese metal and punk, in my opinion, has a great way of stepping past the sleaze shit the US was doing, and going for a darker, more grim sound... if you're listening to the right bands. I'm sure Japan had their Poison clones too.

I can't comment on what the other reviewer said about price, I haven't seen this on ebay for a long time but I've seen it on other sites for way less than a grand. I got it around 1999 for $90, and that was after a big bidding war, so absolutely don't sell your child for this piece of plastic. It's good, close to amazing, but just download it, screw the guy selling it to pay his mortgage.

First off, let me say that this single is extremely rare. OP's have gone over $1000 on eBay. Anyway, this is a decent record from a very short lived band. R.U.G., unlike G.I.S.M. (Randy Uchida's first band), play pure heavy/traditional metal rather than punk/thrash. The first track, Deathly Fighter is a very melodic, mid-speed track and Randy Uchida displays his amazing guitar skills. Finally, the second track, my favorite, Crazy Bomber, starts off with Randy shredding on his guitar, soon going into a slow metal riff, the drum doing a drum beat reminiscent of Iron Maiden. The vocals on both tracks are very operatic and high, very different from when Randy was in G.I.S.M, where the vocals were extremely gruff.


Very good, but when it comes down to it, not worth the amount of money you'd have to pay for it. Unless you're a huge fan of Randy Uchida and is willing to cough up a huge amount of money for this single, I'd suggest downloading it. You can download it from the link on R.U.G.'s band page.