Double Dealer - Deride At The Top
This is a side project featuring members of Japanese bands, Concerto Moon and Saber Tiger (no, me neither!). This is melodic metal somewhere between power metal and hard rock.
The first three tracks, My Straight Shout Squeezed My Soul, Draw The Curtain and the title track, are high octane tracks which sound like a cross between Coverdale era Purple and Savatage. It's a really good start with some top notch playing and reasonable yet distinctive vocals. Vocalist, Takenori Shimoyama, wails away throughout the record like Ian Gillan with a body part (choose one!) trapped in heavy machinery. I don't mind them but can see why people would dislike them.
The rapid fire and theatrical Petal In The Palace has a hint of King Diamond about it and features some great prog tinged keyboards in the middle eight. Cosmos Filled is slower, chugging metal with keyboards and a solo Ozzy vibe. Love Is Not An Indulgence features some lightening fast fret wizardry. Moon Beyond The Glass is '70s hard rock, think UFO meets Uriah Heep.
It does, however, have a tendency to be rather overblown. The ballad, If Fate Includes All The Love, is hideous. Imagine a cross between one of the tracks at the end credits of a Studio Ghibli movie and Celine Dion performed by Kiss at their most pompous. Lay My Hand On My Heart is the longest track and it is prog metal similar to Time Machine, although in the softer passages it comes dangerously close to being overwrought and bloated. The Pain is a mixture of Liberace's pomp, Meatloaf's theatricality and Joachim Cans' melodic metal nous and I'm as torn on this track as I am on those references. Oh well, I guess two out of three ain't bad!
This album is front loaded, with the best tracks coming in the first five numbers but overall, this is still pretty decent.
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