Unbroken

Tokyo Blade is one of the greatest NWOBHM bands that nobody talks about. Their first two albums, their self-titled debut and "Night of the Blade", are finely crafted and honed slabs of heavy metal glory. This is their newest outing, featuring an almost complete original lineup, including the glorious return of original lead vocalist Alan Marsh. For fans of the band, this was very exciting to hear, and so we waiting with bated breath to see if this album lived up to our expectations. In my opinion, it does.

I'll start with the one thing that bugs me: the sound of this record is a bit bland. What I mean by this is that the guitars don't exude the same personality as they did on Blade's first or second album. The sharp, bright tone is replaced with a warmer, chunkier tone that brings to mind most bands these days. A bit disappointing for an 80's purist like me, but I'm not surprised. The track that embodies this the most is "The Man In Black", with its bluesy bass intro and mid-pace chug.

Other things that bother me are incredibly trivial, but I'll include them. Alan's voice isn't what it used to be, although that's not to say that it's bad. I'm actually surprised with how well he sounds. A lot of guys his age usually don't take care of themselves, leading to their voice giving out, but he sounds fine, just not as powerful or forceful. In fact, he reminds me of James Hatfield on multiple occasions, such as on "Burn Down the Night", which sounds oddly like Metallica these days. Normally this would bother me, but I don't mind it here. In the end, I'm glad Alan came back.

All right, now onto what I like about this album: the band delivers exactly what the listener wants, and that's straight-forward metal goodness. In the past band leader Andy Boulton has lead the band (and the listeners) through some murky waters, first with glam metal in the mid-to-late 80's and then with alternative metal in the 90's. After years of missteps and poor decisions, he's finally gotten back to basics, first by giving us a decent album with "Thousand Men Strong" and now by giving us (close to) all the original boys. And they sound like they haven't missed a beat, giving us metal gold with tracks like "Devil's Gonna Bring You Down", "Bullet Made of Stone", "Burn Down the Night", "Black Water", "Dead Again", and "The Last Samurai" which is sort of a spiritual successor to "Warrior of the Rising Sun" .

But my favorite song, oddly enough, is "No Time to Bleed", which is very deceiving at first, what with the Predator reference. For you see, this is the most pop song on the album, giving off Thin Lizzy vibes with the dual-guitar intro, and just having a more melodic feel. This didn't bother me in the least, but it upset many others. It didn't help that it was the first track released as a preview to the whole album, an unwise decision in hindsight. I, on the other hand, was smitten at first listen, and I still have the simple chorus stuck in my head. In addition, Alan Marsh sounds the most like his old self on this song (just a little bonus).

But do you know what the weirdest thing about this album was? It took me a second listen to actually like the thing as a whole. On my first listen, I wasn't impressed, but the next time I listened to it, it clicked. I'm so happy I didn't just throw it aside after the first attempt, otherwise I'd be robbed of a very enjoyable collection of glorious metal.

This album is worth the time it took for me to get it (having to order it from overseas took a couple of weeks). All in all, get this album. It proves that the Blade is still sharp and, definitely, unbroken.