When founding bassist Miho announced her departure from Lovebites, my concerns about the band’s future were sizable. She was the most outspoken metalhead of the band and generally wrote my favorite songs. Fortunately, ‘Judgement Day’, the first album without her, has all the hallmarks of a great Lovebites album. The band is clearly aware of its biggest strengths: the spectacular guitar work of Midori and Miyako, Asami’s incredible vocals and the fact that drummer Haruna is a harder hitter than most drummers in their scene. Time will have to tell where it fits in Lovebites’ discography, but it might be their best album since their possibly unsurpassable debut ‘Awakening from Abyss’.

In many ways, ‘Judgement Day’ feels like a logical continuation of ‘Electric Pentagram’. The tried and true Lovebites formula – two-thirds European-styled power metal, with the last third being evenly distributed over hardrock, traditional heavy metal and speed/thrash metal – is on full display here. ‘Judgement Day’ does profit from being almost fifteen minutes shorter than ‘Electric Pentagram’. As per usual, the Finnvox mastering job is quite loud and compressed, which can be fairly exhausting to listen to for over an hour. At 53 minutes, ‘Judgement Day’ is more or less exactly as long as it needs to be.

My main concern after Miho’s departure was that Lovebites’ scorching thrashers would be a thing of the past, as she generally wrote those. It seems that Asami has taken over that baton. This might be surprising, given her audible background in soul and R&B and the fact that a piano ballad was the only music she contributed to the first two albums. However, the fantastic opener ‘We Are the Resurrection’, the ripping ‘Dissonance’ and the more melodic, but still fairly aggressive title track are all Asami co-writes. ‘We Are the Resurrection’ in particular is genius. Its chorus appears to hint at a triumphant major chord progression, only to turn minor and fantastically dramatic at the second to last chord. My favorite moment on the album.

On the more melodic side of the spectrum, closing track ‘Soldier Stands Solitarily’ is a true highlight. It is full of blazingly fast, pulsating guitar riffs and dramatic melodic themes, while the intense chorus is nothing short of spectacular. Initially, I thought the neoclassical section felt a bit crowbarred in – something not too uncommon in Miyako compositions – but after repeated spins, it became clear to me that it needs to be there to smoothen the transition into the solo section. Another song in a similar theatrical style, though ever so slightly more subdued, is the brilliant ‘Lost in the Garden’, which truly allows Asami’s powerfully emotional vocals to shine.

Although I have been fairly critical of Lovebites songs to which producer Mao wrote all the music in the past, his ‘My Orion’ is exactly what the album needs at that point. Since there aren’t any ballads – not even an epic semi-ballad like the brilliant ‘A Frozen Serenade’ – this excellent mid-paced melodic rocker is necessary to break up what is essentially a non-stop uptempo power metal album. In fact, ‘Judgement Day’ does not have any weak songs at all. ‘Wicked Witch’ doesn’t really stick for me, but is fine as it is, and ‘Stand and Deliver (Shoot ‘Em Down)’ has too good a chorus to be written off as a ‘Raise Some Hell’ re-write designed with audience participation in mind.

‘Judgement Day’ is much better than I expected it would be. While its peaks aren’t quite as high as the ones on ‘Electric Pentagram’, it is a more consistent album overall. New bassist Fami – a virtuoso in her own right – gets a slightly more prominent place in the mix than her predecessor at times, but all in all, not much has changed. Lovebites is still most likely the best European-styled power metal band in Japan. ‘Judgement Day’ is filled to the brim with excellent songs and guitar fireworks. And that is exactly what a Lovebites album needs to be.

Recommended tracks: ‘We Are the Resurrection’, ‘Soldier Stands Solitarily’, ‘Dissonance’, ‘Lost in the Garden’

 

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