TOKYO BLADE – Dark Revolution (2020)

After some delay due the well known global event, UK 80s legends TOKYO BLADE unleash their ninth studio album “Dark Revolution” tomorrow, and it’s been worth the wait. We have 11 tracks of powerhouse British traditional metal / hard rock delivered with the band’s original spirit intact.
They rock, and rock hard on this new kick ass opus.

As clever as anything penned by Accept, Scorpions or Iron Maiden, this overlooked English band made its debut in the ‘price is right’ section of LPs that just weren’t selling but were flooding forth from the gates of metal music.
The juice is worth the squeeze, though, and Tokyo Blade is just as profound and potent as they were back in 1984.

Founder member and guitarist Andy Boulton has kept the flag flying with an ever-changing cast of supporting actors (largely other NWoBHM survivors, but also, interestingly, an American version of the band which played extensively at the end of the last decade) and so here we are in 2020 – and he’s back with four fifths of the lineup that recorded the band’s storied debut!

‘Dark Revolution’ has that great arena rock you were searching for when discovering new groups at the prime of your sexual inhibitions. Plenty of head-and-fist-banging anthems while sweating out your hormonal desires.
“The Fastest Gun in Town” screams an obligatory “give it all, give it all, give it everything you’ve got” with a responding chorus cry from the residing choir that yes, this is what we’ve all been looking for.

The back half of this new release, “Crack in the Glass” and the more melodic “Perfect Enemy,” hone in on a Michael Schenker vibe that can commit no foul in my books.
Songs like ‘Not Lay Down and Die’ and closer ‘Voices of the Damned’ are all roof-raising crackers, with that distinctly Brit metal / hard rock style the band made their own in 1983 thoroughly re-installed and blazing.

It’s 2020, the world has moved on, and so, it would seem, has Tokyo Blade. That’s a good thing in places – this new album is produced beautifully, retaining the band’s signature heaviness yet sounding thoroughly modern, whilst vocalist Alan Marsh has perfected his craft and used his experience well; gone is the reedy, occasionally nasal warble of yore, replaced by a full throated metal roar that suits the music perfectly.

If you want to revel in that classic ‘80s sound with contemporary production, I would definitely recommend ‘Dark Revolution’, as it will feed the jones to scratch the itch when politics didn’t seem so complicated, you didn’t have to worry about bills or money, and life was about the song, the girl, and a beer.
Tokyo Blade has aged with grace, as have their audience. Please welcome back Tokyo Blade with stereos blazing. The only difference these days is that your four-year-old will be bitching about the volume instead of your Grandmother.
Highly Recommended

01 – Story of a Nobody
02 – Burning Rain
03 – Dark Revolution
04 – The Fastest Gun in Town
05 – Truth is a Hunter
06 – Crack in the Glass
07 – Perfect Enemy
08 – See You Down in Hell
09 – The Lights of Soho
10 – Not Lay Down and Die
11 – Voices of the Damned

Alan Marsh – Vocals (ex-Shogun)
Andy Boulton – Guitars (ex-Killer)
John Wiggins – Guitars (ex-Battlezone)
Andy Wrighton – Bass (ex-Shogun)
Steve Pierce – Drums (ex-Shogun, Tigertailz)

Pre Order:
www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Revolution-Tokyo-Blade/dp/B085RR5Y5F