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Concerto Moon - Fragments Of The Moon review



Reviewer:
7.0

16 users:
7.19
Band: Concerto Moon
Album: Fragments Of The Moon
Release date: July 1997


01. Alone In Paradise
02. Run To The Sky
03. Cry For Freedom
04. Holy Child
05. Hold On (To Feeling)
06. Midwinter Night
07. Over The Century
08. Take You To The Moon
09. The Last Betting [bonus] [live]
10. One And Only [bonus] [live]
11. Into The Fire [bonus] [live]

Obviously a good year to record a debut album as proven by Rhapsody. The thing about Concerto Moon's debut is: It brings you a very old fashioned 70's/80's oriented heavy metal sound. You can clearly hear influences of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, some say Deep Purple and also Stratovarius as well as Yngwie Malmsteen.
With lyrics mainly in japanese and a minimum of english (especially in the choruses) you hear the bands singer Takao Ozaki, CM's vocalist on the first three albums ?Fragments??, ?From Father to Son? and Rain Forest. On the guitar you will find the bands mastermind Norifumi Shima performing great. With the other musicians adding to a unique but at the same time familiar metal sound that has become very famous in Japan, but I guess hardly known in the rest of the world? unfortunately.

This debut album already contains standards like ?Alone In Paradise? and ?Run To The Sky?.
The other songs are solidly performed paving the way for the future of this fast improving band, that is getting better each year, though you might get the impression that from this point no improvement is possible, which time has proven wrong already. This impression is mostly underlined by Norifuma's guitarplaying, songwriting and production, alltogether a strike of the genius.
This album, originally released in 1997, has been (remastered? and) rereleased with three live bonus tracks in 2000 together with the ?new? album ?Rain Forest?. In addition with the bouns tracks the debut album has a total playing time of 70 minutes and 44 seconds, concluding this record is worth its price. You will even like ?Fragments Of The Moon? if you don's under-stand japanese, just like me. Just go and feel the music, beautiful power metal, fast played riffs and solos, an above-average-performance of bass, drums and keyboards and a solid performance on the vocals, but this should improve with the changing of the lead singer in 2001.

In fact this album has a lot to offer: the exotic of japanese vocals, the great guitarplaying of an old-fashioned metal influenced mastermind on guitars, songwriting and production. Combined to a sound that is familiar but unique and fresh at the same time, but this is just the beginning?

Written by Pierre Tombale | 24.11.2003





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