Album Review: Loudness's Spiritual Canoe

This has been an interesting trip fellow Otaku & Metalheads!                 

Our trip through Loudness’s territory in Japan has been fun! The Birthday Eve from the beginning of the 80s was a smash, and while On The Prowl from 1991 had issues, it still had some fun material on it. Now, we turn our attention to the year 2001. How did the group survive the rest of the 1990s, and did they change in any significant way? Well, let’s take a look at the oddly named Spiritual Canoe, and see what’s up.

Background
Taken from Wikipedia:

“In 1993, the band was again on the verge of falling apart, with the departure of both Higuchi, who went to play in Niihara’s Sly, and Sawada, who founded D.T.R. Takasaki remained the only founding member, with a band to reinvent. In this period he traveled to India and converted to Buddhism, and found the right motivations to not disband Loudness. He convinced Yamada to stay as singer and, with his help, recruited former Ezo drummer Hirotsugu Homma to the band. The trio produced in 1994 Heavy Metal Hippies, a transitional studio album, where Takasaki tried to mix the old Loudness’ sound with grunge and world music influences. To bring the band on tour, Takasaki completed the roster with Naoto Shibata, bassist and leader of the then disbanded Japanese heavy metal band Anthem. This new incarnation of Loudness released three other studio albums (Ghetto Machine, Dragon and Engine) and one live album (Loud 'n' Raw) between 1994 and 1999. The sound of these releases is quite different from the band’s earlier works, with Takasaki’s compositions veering strongly towards groove metal with heavy psychedelic and ethnic influences. Homma’s double bass drum beat is another important difference from earlier Loudness’ sound. The band toured regularly in Asia and went to Europe, where they participated to the 1999 edition of the Dynamo Open Air Festival.

In 2000, Yamada manifested his wish to quit Loudness and suggested a reunion with the original line-up to celebrate the band's 20th Anniversary. Takasaki agreed with him and dismissed Homma and Shibata, asking at the same time Higuchi, Niihara and Yamashita to rejoin the band for the event. The original members of the band reunited in 2001,  releasing the album Spiritual Canoe and doing a celebratory tour. Although intended to be a one-time event, the popularity of the band's reunion in their native Japan was overwhelming and the band decided to continue recording and live activities. At least one studio album and one DVD release have followed every year since the 2001 reunion, in addition to one-off recordings, like 2005's theme song for famed K-1 fighter Musashi ("The Battleship Musashi").”

Basic Description
Odd. Weird. Experimental. Nu.

Let me get this out of the way: this is not the Loudness that old-school fans will be familiar with. This is not their heyday in the 1980s, nor is it their brief classic period at the beginning of the 1990s. Spiritual Canoe lies firmly in their experimental era: full of Funk, Groove, Rhythm, experimentation, you name it. The band were beyond their past, and it seemed as if this experimenting phase was what they would be going with for the rest of their career. This has some issues (More on that in a bit), but at the same time there’s something endearing about Loudness trying a bunch of new things in their music. I kinda dig that the group is going all over the place, and it’s probably why it’s got the fans that it does.

Best Track
The Power Of Love is such a interesting way to end the album. The track opts for a more Blues-like approach with it’s instrumentation, as the guitar, bass, and drums are played a little more slowly when compared to most of the other songs on Spiritual Canoe. Even Minoru Niihara’s vocal work on this song is more downplayed in terms of pacing, as he has a bit of an old-school crooner attitude about him as he sings. Blues has never been my thing, but this is a rare example of me enjoying something from that genre.

The Power Of Love (No Link)

Worst Track
For starters, let’s complain about the name. Spiritual Canoe is without a doubt the goofiest name I’ve ever seen among album names. Yeah, this is a rather minor issue, and I kinda agree with anybody who’d see me complaining about this as silly. I won’t press on this issue too much more, as Akira Takasaki has converted to Buddhism a few years earlier in the 90s, so my guess is that his spirituality was some influence behind this record’s name.

My biggest complaint, however, would be that Loudness may have been experimenting a bit too much on Spiritual Canoe. After the early 90s, the band was influenced by the likes of Pantera, the early days of Nu Metal, Funk, Groove, Rhythm, you name it! Because of all of these influences, the band went all over the place in terms of their songs.....but at the cost of, in my opinion, a solid identity. From the moment they began their experimental phase, the albums they released never had a firm character to them. Again, all of what influenced the band may have spread things out a little too thin in my opinion. Say what you will about Sabaton’s 2016 release The Last Stand, but at the very least there was still a complete identity on that record. Here? There’s an overall solid sense of quality, but you can’t really identify it’s personality.

Other
If you’re curious about listening to this album, then click on the link below:

Spiritual Canoe (Download Only)

Overall Impression & Rating
Spiritual Canoe is definitely not for everybody. Like I said above, it’s nothing like the band’s output in the 1980s, and it’s not even like their early 90s work either. This release is a mix of Pantera-style attitude, coupled with Funk & Experimentation, and just a hint of odd. Yet, it’s oddness is endearing in a way. It shows that Loudness is willing to step outside their comfort zone, and is willing to try out a different sound. Those of you who are fans of Loudness’s classic sound may be put off by Spiritual Canoe, but for anyone wanting to expand their personal musical bubble, then this might be something to consider listening to.

Spiritual Canoe gets a 7 out of 10.

And that was Spiritual Canoe. It’s certainly not for everybody, but it definitely fills out the Experimental/Nu Metal niche that some music fans might want sometimes. Well, our 2nd leg of this trip is just about done everybody, so join me next time for when we travel back to the relatively recent year of 2018 for Loudness’s most current release. See you soon!