Warthur
On their international breakthrough Disillusion, Loudness don't reinvent the wheel - they play traditional heavy metal, they wouldn't sound out of place opening for Judas Priest or Manowar, and they rock at it. The album comes in two versions; the original with Japanese-language lyrics sports by far the better cover art, though the English-language version is more complete, including as it does an intro which was cut from the original release. Either version offers a range of sounds from slower, gentler passages to more furious assaults - Esper, in particular, creeps towards the threshold of thrash metal. It's not an essential classic of the genre, but it's a more than solid effort which will entertain anyone who likes the harder side of 1980s metal.