Looking back now, ‘Kuromitten’ turned out to be a bit of a turning point in Gargoyle’s career. It came off the back of a string of albums that – with the notable exception of ‘Kemonomichi’ – sounded as close to Gargoyle going through the motions as the band would ever be. None of those albums were less than enjoyable, but they lacked the urgency of the band’s best work. ‘Kuromitten’ shows Gargoyle renewing its focus and laying out the blueprint for a new carreer peak in the second decade of the twenty-first century, with a style slightly more streamlined, but no less unconventional.

From ‘Kuromitten’ onward, Gargoyle’s style would pretty much consistently be fifty percent rabid thrash metal, forty percent power metal and ten percent punk-ish rock. Funky tracks were a thing of the past at this point, but there would still always be enough stylistic detours to keep Gargoyle albums from being an exercise in pummeling your skull, even with Kiba’s lead vocals being all bark and bite more or less throughout the album’s playtime. The renewed focus means that ‘Kuromitten’ is easily the most consistent Gargoyle album since ‘Tsuki no Toge’ fifteen years prior, with scorching thrash riffs and triumphant power metal melodies galore.

One thing all of Gargoyle’s best albums have in common is an incredible opener and ‘Shi ni Itaru Kizu’ is one of their best to date. It reprises a handful of themes also present in ‘Gokuraku Full Throttle’ from the preceding ‘Yaiba’ album, but manages to completely overshadow that track with its blazing melodic themes and pulsating palm-muted riffing. Its chorus feels particularly cathartic as well. From then on, listeners are treated to intense violent thrashers like ‘Memento Mori’, ‘Enigma’ and the rhythmically particularly effective ‘Bucchigiri Crash!’, as well as tracks that focus on the somewhat more melodic side of the band.

Ultimately, that is what makes ‘Kuromitten’ such a joy to listen to all the way through. An album full of annihilating thrashers would get tiresome quickly, but Gargoyle knows how to break those up with rockier tracks like the borderline swinging hardrocker ‘Zero Blood’ or the downright fun ‘Magma Kid’. ‘Sora e to Tsuzuku Saka’ is one of the band’s better slower stompers, building from Eastern mysticism to a monumentally huge main riff, after which I love how the song opens up for the chorus and Kentaro’s incredible guitar solo. Hell, even ‘Garapon’, the upbeat rocker that closes the album, is great.

Sometimes, a band that kind of lost its way just needs an album to put them back on track. While Gargoyle did not seem to be getting too lost on the surface, in hindsight it became clear that ‘Kuromitten’ did just that for the quartet from Osaka. I truly believe this album needed to be made in order for Gargoyle to be able to churn out latter-day masterpieces ‘Geshiki’ and ‘Taburakashi’. That does not mean that ‘Kuromitten’ can only be appreciated for what it later achieved, however. Some of the album’s songs are among the band’s greatest work, with ‘Shi ni Itaru Kizu’ rightfully becoming a live staple. More people should hear this.

Recommended tracks: ‘Shi ni Itaru Kizu’, ‘Bucchigiri Crash!’, ‘Sora e to Tsuzuku Saka’