Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: July 13, 2018
Production: Nozomu Wakai
Album length: 49.15
Genre: Hard Rock / Power Metal
Mid-July last year saw the release of the second proper full-length studio effort from Destinia, the project fronted by Japanese guitar virtuoso Nozomu Wakai. Nozomu is one of the few Japanese musicians who, through hard graft and serious diligence, hit the jackpot and landed a deal with a European label, which puts his new album »Metal Souls« within reach of European metal and hard rock fans too. We’re talking about Italy’s Frontiers Music Srl. Four years ago came the debut »Requiem for A Scream«, followed by the EP »Anecdote of the Queens« (2015), and the year before last even a live album. The second album, the new and current one, »Metal Souls«, is a decisive step up.
Why? True, the debut already showed the guitarist to be a musician and a big perfectionist with an eye for detail, but for the new album Wakai managed to put together a proper lineup that plays every single track alongside him with total commitment. From start to finish. Even though Nozomu officially remains a “one man band,” and even though the trio of collaborators counts only as guest names, »Metal Souls« sounds like it was recorded by a real band.
So which three names join Wakai on »Metal Souls« to give the new album such a much bolder punch? Before »Metal Souls«, the only big name worth pointing out next to Wakai was vocalist Rob Rock, who contributed vocals on a handful of tracks. »Metal Souls« is a compact, polished piece of work, where singer Ronnie Romero, bassist Marco Mendoza and drummer Tommy Aldridge join the outstanding guitarist from the first track to the last. Want more than that? There probably isn’t any more to be had.
»Metal Souls« moves through the waters of neoclassical hard rock that slides into power metal charges and back again. The songwriting wears its influences on its sleeve: clear and decisive nods to 70s hard rock like Whitesnake, Rainbow, Deep Purple, and to later acts like Dio, Michael Schenker Group, Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s Rising Force, Impellitteri, Axel Rudi Pell,…Wakai is no egomaniac and no “mindless” guitar machine gunner who’d bet everything on speed and sacrifice the tightness and listenability of a given song for it. The man is seriously crafty at placing his phrases, which keeps the melodic catchiness and cohesion high. His approach and style draw inspiration from the giants of rock guitar, such as Randy Rhoads and Michael Schenker. True, Nozomu won’t bring any musical revolution to the scene, the shapes of his compositions lean on the already-heard and the tried-and-tested cliché, and this is really an 80s revival, but on the other hand the album is razor-sharp and delivered at an exceptionally high level of quality, where sheer heart outweighs every remark about generic-ness. The songs steal the spotlight from each other with explosive and ultra-bombastic chorus hooks. Be A Hero, Take Me Home, the opening Metal Souls, Promised Land… it’s hard to pick the highlights.
Romero shines on vocals! His voice works fantastically. In fact, some lines with his tonal color evoke what Romero is doing these days with CoreLeoni, while the excellent and one of the strongest tracks, Promised Land, evokes the best moments of Gotthard with Steve Lee on vocals. In short, a neoclassical hard rock to heavy metal album spiced with baroque ornaments, minus the “Malmsteen sensationalism,” and never short on explosiveness and dynamite. Legends Marco Mendoza and Tommy Aldridge, who were once even partners in crime for a while in the lineups of Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy, leave a special touch and stamp on the album. Hence the heaps of proud classic hard rock sentiment, even though production-wise »Metal Souls« is a seriously bristling and thoroughly metalized album (Jens Bogren and Fredrik Nördstrom mixed and mastered it), which is why on first listen it actually sounds very power metal.
The album »Metal Souls« is an achievement that throws the doors wide open (globally) for Destinia’s further creative moves and vision. On it, Nozomu Wakai proved himself an exceptionally skilled composer who has outgrown the typical “Japanese naivety” in Japanese imitations of the West’s hard rock legacy. With the integration of Romero, he solves with feather-light ease the eternally nagging problem of Japanese acts: using English correctly in the meter of the verses. »Metal Souls« is, then, a real “bomb” of an 80s hard rock and metal revival. Stylistically it’s an astonishingly precise album. Precise in the sense that it was composed by a Japanese musician who, at the same time, knocks so effectively on the ears of European and American fans of ultra-catchy hard rock and metal. That’s why Nozomu Wakai has huge potential to claw his way high up the scene in the future.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Track list:
1. Metal Souls
2. Rain
3. The End Of Love
4. Promised Land
5. Take Me Home
6. Raise Your Fist
7. Be A Hero
8. Metamorphoses
9. Cross The Line
10. Judgement Day
Lineup:
Nozomu Wakai – guitar
Ronnie Romero – vocals
Marco Mendoza – bass
Tommy Aldridge – drums
