The Ultimate Review of Tokyo Warhearts

<p id="reviewText_165264">Should you listen to only one release from these Finnish metal oddballs, you would be well-advised to make it this one. Indeed, this live recording may very well encapsulate their work at its purest and at its best.<br />
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First of all, the sound mix here is incredibly well balanced, giving all five instruments, bass included, a chance to breathe and to be easily picked up by the listener’s ear. The recording is also very raw and authentic, with little to no post-production polishing such as overdubbing the sound to hide performance mistakes. Likewise, though the audience is very clearly audible, the kind of self-indulgent, artificially enhanced crowd noise present on too many a live album is nowhere to be found here. On the less bright side, a couple of the track-to-track transitions are absolutely jarring, making it clear that these particular songs were picked from different sets and did not originally follow each other. The rest of them, though, are fluid enough.<br />
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As far as the band’s musical performance is concerned, it is top-notch. There seems to be very few mistakes, which is commendable considering that most of their songs are fairly difficult to play, at least on a popular music scale. The songs sound just as tight and well-crafted as they are in their studio incarnations, and in some cases even better as the band allow themselves to indulge in a few subtle tweaks. Alexi Laiho does a decent enough job with his harsh vocals as well, though his few attempts at actual singing (with a gruff, gravely voice) sound awkward and a little clumsy. Even so, said attempts are in no way grating or off-putting.<br />
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This recording is entirely made up of excerpts from their second album tour, so the whole selection of songs is from their first and second albums. This can be considered a good thing, as we are spared the ever so slightly sugary and plastic sounding aura that their later albums, though most of them are far from bad, would develop. As for the actual track list, most of the essentials up to that point are satisfyingly present. The only clear drawback here is the rather short total length of forty-five minutes.<br />
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The somewhat original front cover artwork is worth mentioning, as it is a colorful and pleasing parody of Japanese animation graphics. Admittedly, it starts looking really terrible if down-scaled too far, so the best way to judge it is to have a look at the real thing.<br />
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Overall, this live album is an effort of better taste and considerably higher quality than the norm, and comes highly recommend especially to those whom live albums usually leave cold.</p>
<p>Final Score: 49 / 100</p>