Anthem - Black Empire

        My all time favourite Japanese album is Loudness' Disillusion (English Ver.). I love everything about that album when I first listened to it and even now I still get excited about the thrills galore found in there.
        Disillusion is one of those rare occasions when Minoru Nihara sang the whole album twice. Originally released in the Japanese language, and then in English with the most unique, cute pronunciation that only the Japanese can.
        There was an old interview with Minoru or was it Akira? when he informed that Disillusion was the "heaviest"among all the early Loudness Japanese releases before they got a proper International album release deal that begins with Thunder In The East and these Atco label albums make them big names worldwide.

Another Japanese album that I really like, is Anthem's Black Empire from around 2008. This is how the packaging looks like for Black Empire.

I still find it amusing watching on the internet or disc all these Anthem live shows, and they have all these ladies occupying the front row, young girls and older ages, all punching their hands in the air, with all the male fans behind them, and there was no signs of pushing, or elbowing or scrambling to get to the barriers.

It was premiered by the Heat Of The Night song.
Below is the official promotional video for this song I think.
Maybe its just coincidental but the chorus is quite similar to Kamlelot's Lost and Damned from 2003.



Naoto Shibata the bassist wrote most of the songs, and he was also the producer.
Akio Shimizu as usual on jaw-dropping guitars, Eizo Sakamoto shows the most sweetest side of his voice on "Walk Through The Night" found on this album and Hirotsugu Homma on drums.

Walk Through The Night is I believe the only "love song" for this album.
Just a little bit of English is used on this song but it has this great line of "I love your innocence, I love your smile". I always love Eizo's voice on this song especially when he begins each verse.

Other than that, the rest of this album is a bit faster and heavier with enough variety to excites me.

The song Black Empire would have made a great song pop single with its wholesome catchiness.


Perfect Crawler has some unique lyrics.
"Dear My Evil
   haitoku no yoru ni odore
Proud Us Lucifer
    gokujou no doku o kawasou"



It would be nice to know what Eizo is singing.
I always love X-Japan fans websites with translations of the Japanese lyrics into what I think are as accurate as possible English words and sentences.
I cannot find any for Anthem though.

Besides the above songs, you have You, Go Insane, Emptiness World, Telling You, Awake and the instrumental Pilgrims.
I would really love to get hold of the bootlegs and video recordings of Anthem playing live to promote this Black Empire album but that's difficult.


I will try to upload some Anthem Bootlegs audio bootlegs that I have on youtube.
And their latest blue-ray disc, I have no idea how to rip it as I watch using a standalone player, but I will see what I can to show a bit more teasers till all Anthem fans get a copy each.