J-Man Something truly must be said for Sweden and their fantastic retro-hard rock scene right now! The amount of excellent melodic hard rock releases coming from the country is almost unbelievable, and one of the newest recruits in this retro-metal movement is Gothenburg's Katana. The band's appearance and musical direction decidedly sounds as if it were from the eighties - certainly not a bad thing if you're a fan of the golden age of heavy metal! This retrospective attitude leads to very minimal innovation, but I'm sure that wasn't the intent of the album in the slightest. All that really matters is that Heads Will Roll is a kick-ass album that successfully brings back the golden age of melodic heavy metal. And what could possibly be wrong with that?

Katana successfully recreates the sound of 80's heavy metal here - the mixture of glam metal, NWoBHM, and melodic hard rock sounds like it's straight out of 1985. Katana has managed to write some really memorable anthems here, with songs like "Livin' Without Fear" and "Heart In Tokyo" standing out as highlights. Every composition is strong, though, and perfectly executed by the fantastic musicians in the band. The guitar work from Patrik Essén and Tobias Karlsson especially stands out - these axemen certainly know how to play! My only significant gripe with the album is the production. Though certainly listenable, it sounds a bit muddy and the vocals are mixed poorly. It may be partially due to my MP3 promo copy, but I have no way of knowing whether or not the retail version sounds like this.

Heads Will Roll may not be the most groundbreaking album you'll ever come across, but it's a damn fine heavy metal effort that I've had a great time experiencing over the last few days. If you like retro-sounding melodic metal with tons of hooks and memorable riffs, as well as terrific musicianship and interesting compositions, Katana's debut full-length comes highly recommended. I'll play my 3.5 star card here. I'm looking forward to hearing more from these guys in the coming years!

The Block It’s not everyday you come across a band from Sweden that sings of sailing to Tokyo and takes up the name of a classic Japanese sword, but one of these bands is Katana. Their recently released album, “Heads Will Roll” seems to be a homing tribute to everything Asian, with their lyrics, song titles, and even cover artwork. That being said, it still seems a bit clichéd in its nature, sometimes almost leading into power metal type grooves when the rest of the album is pure heavy metal. This Swedish band sure is good, with great guitar work from both Patrik Essén and Tobias Karlsson, but sometimes that is over run by the unoriginality that this album sometimes portrays.

“Quest for Hades” is perhaps the most traditional song on the album, and lends a nice touch to the end of the album. It starts out in a very “Seventh Son”-era Iron Maiden type fashion with a strumming bass line and Johan Bernspång singing, and then transfers into some traditional heavy metal riffs accompanied by some good drumming by Anders Persson. One thing that I don’t like about this album is the lyrics. Usually something like this doesn’t really bother me, but some of the lyrics and themes of these songs are really lame. Take for example during “Quest for Hades” when Johan chants “…down, down, down…” over and over again. Also at one point of the album I swear you can hear Johan finish up a line and then shout “Guitar!”, and then a guitar solo starts. If that isn’t lame I’m not sure what is.

Other than those few lyrics, the rest of the album, specifically the musicianship, is quite good. The bass and the guitars blend very nicely together, and offer up a great backing to the vocals. The production on the album isn’t awesome, but it fits the album fine and doesn’t detract at all from the album.

Katana’s first full length album breaks no barriers, and isn’t that ground breaking, but it still is a pretty decent album. Fans of heavy metal in general should enjoy this album, and it sure is a good release by this relatively new band. For their release they get 3 stars.