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Japanese Heavy Metal pioneers Loudness have existed since the year 1981 and have recorded nearly 30 studio albums during the band's long-lasting career. Talk about an achievement. Most of us undoubtedly remember Loudness mainly from the band's fifth, and biggest selling, album Thunder in the East, released in 1985. Back then Loudness toured the whole world and the gates of mega-success were opened wide. After the successful years of 1985-88 the band went in for some hideous marketing strategies, like changing lead vocalist Minoru Niihara for Michael Vescera, who recorded a couple of albums with Loudness before joining Yngwie J. Malmsteen's band in 1991. The damage was done and fans loyal to the original lineup of the band only wanted to hear albums with original vocalist Niihara.

Loudness released several more studio albums after Vescera's departure, with Niihara returning in 2001. The latest album, The Sun Will Rise Again, was released on Thunderball667, a sub-label of Universal Music Japan, in June 2014. It may be a clever marketing trick but the album cover looks like a modernized version of the one from the band's most commercially successful album, Thunder in the East. The songs, however, are not carbon copies of those on Thunder... but introduce us to a surprisingly energetic yet mature-sounding Loudness. Unlike so many other Metal bands with as long a career as Loudness, that released their best records 30 or 40 years ago, Loudness still manages to sound impressively fresh on their latest opus. It is a pleasingly creative collection with more to offer than just remakes of their classic songs.

The Sun Will Rise Again offers an enjoyable amount of high class Heavy Metal and this Japanese Metal patrol is truly on fire. They don't try to re-create Thunder in the East or take some similarly easy route but try to make something that will satisfy both the fans and the band members themselves. At this, the Loudness camp does a very good job.

Every time I spin The Sun Will Rise Again and hear the freshness of the songs, it makes me think of German Metal veterans Accept and how they have made solid albums, one after another, since Blood of the Nations came out in 2010. Loudness has a similar joy to their playing and everything sounds just effortless, like they could never get enough of the sheer enjoyment that metallic music brings. Songs like the addictive, sing-a-long anthem, and true riff monster, "Mortality," the somewhat progressive "The Best," which reminds me of Sweden's Abstrakt Algebra and the album's powerful title track are a few of the highlights from this record. The whole album is a fireworks display of Heavy Metal's joyousness and Akira Takasaki is still a guitar god. The Sun Will Rise Again made me love Loudness all over again. Thanks Loudness for coming back into my life again.