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What's the 4-1-1?
You know, old eighties metal legends never die, they just go overseas. Jack
Blades from Night Ranger and Eric Martin of Mr. Big fame team up with one
of Japan's most talented guitar players to bring you melodic rock with
the Far East flair.
Genre
Melodic rock / hard rock
The Good
The CD starts off with a power anthem, “Oh Japan - Our Time is Now”.
Crunchy guitar riffs accented by Japanese-style embellishments furnish the
tract with its appeal. The vocals are just as powerful and inspiring. The
guitar solo is just unbelievable, a rarity in the states today. You can’t
escape the Japanese musical influence during the opening of “Everything
Passes Away”. Surprisingly the Kitaro-like instrumental fits in perfectly
with the hard rock riffs and catchy melodic vocals. “Kings for a Day
could easily be passed for an action movie theme. I’m thinking something
like Top Gun. Eric Martin hasn't lost any of his great vocal range.
Tak Matsumoto & Co. hit the open road on “I Wish You Were Here”.
It has a southern rock appeal to it, as well as great bluesy guitar work.
A driving ax run, and a chugga-chugga riff command “The Greatest Show
on Earth”. There's a nice to twangy guitar effect on “Red, White,
and Bullet Blue” that leads into an understated message of gun control. “My
Alibi” has sort of a Red Hot Chili Peppers groove to it, with much
better vocals. The power ballad (of sorts) “Never Goodbye” concludes
the album.
The Bad
I expected more than one ballad from Blades and Martin. These guys wrote “Sister
Christian” and “To Be With You” for crying out loud.
The Verdict
With the more and more crap they play on rock radio here in the U.S. these
days, the more I appreciate the rock music coming out of Europe. TMG reminds
us of how rock used to be. Just because some artists are beyond their heyday
doesn't mean that they're not talented musicians. From start to finish
TMG1 is a non-stop melodic rock assault with great guitar work, vocals,
and songwriting
Did you know?
Tak Matsumoto was the chief songwriter, guitarist, and producer of the biggest
selling band in the history of Japan. B’Z went on to sell over 80
million units in Japan alone.
Rating:  out
of 5
--George Dionne |
TAK
MATSUMOTO GROUP
