Loudness - Soldier of Fortune (1989)^{Release ID: 5889}

Ok, so I feel like I should kick off this review with a clear disclaimer. I’ve had quite a bit of exposure to Loudness over the years but have never been a fan of what I’ve heard. My experiences largely sit within the band’s first four albums which saw the light of day between 1981 & 1984 &, while none of those releases were exactly horrible, they each left me feeling decidedly underwhelmed & wondering how records like “Disillusion” & “The Law of Devil’s Land” have become so popular with fans of the classic heavy metal sound. Akira Takasaki is certainly a wonderful guitar virtuoso but that was never enough to combat the cheesy & generic song-writing & the horrible Japanese-accented lyrics. Regardless, I’ve never been one to let internal bias direct my views on a release that I’ve previously been unacquainted with so let’s see what “Soldier of Fortune” is all about, shall we?

Loudness have certainly proven themselves to be quite prolific over the years as they’d released a full four albums in the time between 1984’s “Disillusion” (arguably their most highly acclaimed record) & 1989’s “Soldier of Fortune”. I remember some of their earlier material having a noticeable Rush-style progressive rock influence but by this stage they’d dropped that altogether with the late 80’s model of Loudness opting for a more straight-down-the-line hard rock-infused heavy metal sound. Akira’s devastating axe-slinging skills are the clear highlight of the album & this may just be the finest performance I’ve heard from him to date with Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads & Yngwie Malmsteen influences all being combined into a truly slaying example of the late 80’s shred phenomenon. The other noteworthy element of “Solder of Fortune” is the incorporation of a new American vocalist in Mike Vescera who offers the band a newly found accessibility. He also goes a long way to solving the problems I mentioned earlier with original singer Minoru Niihara as the vocal delivery is no longer an issue for me here.

“Soldier of Fortune” kicks off pretty well to be honest & after the first few songs I was wondering whether I may have found a Loudness record I could actually appreciate. Unfortunately though, things start to got noticeably rocky through the middle of the album with hard rocker “Red Light Shooter” falling pretty flat & the two ballads “Twenty-Five Days” & “Lost Without Your Love” reminding me of my qualms with the band’s earlier releases. Things do start to pick up late in the piece before tripping over themselves again with lazy power metal closer “Demon Disease”. Don’t get me wrong. There are some decent tunes here & I get enjoyment out of a good 60% of the tracklisting. It’s just that there are no obvious highlight tracks to balance out the low points & that leaves me feeling like the whole experience is more of a chore than it would have been if there had of been one or two real belters included.

Poor Loudness. They try so hard but may be destined never to see my head turn in admiration, despite the presence of a guitar god of the highest order. “Soldier of Fortune” is a more straight forward heavy metal record than earlier outings & this is both its strength & weakness. It can sound pretty basic in its makeup at times but also seems a touch more focused at the same time. If pushed I’d suggest that it’s the Loudness record that’s come the closest to hitting the mark in my experiences with the band to date but they’ve still got a lot of work to do if they want to see me singing their praises.

For fans of Yngwie Malmsteen, Dokken & Accept.