Album of the Week 05-2020: Lovebites – Electric Pentagram
While Lovebites’ sophomore album ‘Clockwork Immortality’ was good, it was also a little too close to melodic hardrock to not be worried about the band’s future at times. Fortunately, ‘Electric Pentagram’ is a lot more metallic. In fact, the song titles may even suggest that the band is overcompensating for the AOR-isms of ‘Clockwork Immortality’. There may be some truth to that statement, but that should not matter too much with a set of songs this strong. ‘Electric Pentagram’ is crammed full of intense riffing and soaring lead guitar work and has a degree of consistency that ‘Clockwork Immortality’ lacked.
It may not seem fair to compare this album to its predecessor as much as the opening paragraph of this review does, but in many ways, ‘Electric Pentagram’ feels like a reaction to ‘Clockwork Immortality’. There are no ballads to be found on the album, not even of the power-ballad-turns-epic-power-metal variety like ‘Edge Of The World’ from the debut, and the volume dial is basically up to eleven all the way through. That latter productional trait is one of the very few notable flaws of ‘Electric Pentagram’. Seventy minutes of this mastering job can be exhausting to the ears, especially on headphones.
Furthermore, the way Lovebites storms out of the gate with the fierce, thrashy ‘Thunder Vengeance’ is devoid of any subtlety. The main riff is quite cleverly written, with the timing of the accents shifting a few times between the palm-muted semi-gallops at warp speed. ‘Set The World On Fire’ is another ripping thrasher, this one with a triumphant power metal chorus. Melodic, yet intense power metal is Lovebites’ forte, of course, and ‘Electric Pentagram’ is not lacking any of these songs. The epic ‘When Destinies Align’ is particularly powerful, ‘Golden Destination’ gallops along convincingly and ‘Signs Of Deliverance’ is full of awesome Helloween-isms, while ‘Today Is The Day’ is punchy and reminiscent of ‘Don’t Bite The Dust’ in the construction of its vocal melody.
Although there are no ballads, there are some surprising moments that do not necessarily fit any of the previous descriptions. ‘A Frozen Serenade’ in particular is a refreshing take on the Lovebites formula. The guitar riffs are as propulsive as on the other tracks, but the overall more restrained rhythms and gorgeous melancholic melodies give the song a completely different feel. Miyako’s acoustic solo is a pleasant surprise and the song is tailor-made for Asami’s stellar soul and R&B-inspired vocals. The shuffle feel of ‘The Unbroken’ is rather atypical as well and the hardrock-ish heavy metal riffs of ‘Dancing With The Devil’ bring late eighties Dio to mind.
Lovebites may never be able to top their incredible debut ‘Awakening From Abyss’. ‘Electric Pentagram’ is just short of that album’s brilliance as well, but it certainly is closer to it both stylistically and in terms of quality than the intervening album. While the keyboards are still slightly too prominent at times, guitarists Miyako and Midori dominate the album and most of the songs are winners. Even the less remarkable ones are not particularly skipworthy this time around. Lovebites is still one of the most European sounding power metal bands Japan has to offer these days and ‘Electric Pentagram’ once again blows several similar sounding European bands out of the water.
Recommended tracks: ‘Thunder Vengeance’, ‘A Frozen Serenade’, ‘Set The World On Fire’, ‘When Destinies Align’
Kevy Metal 
No trackbacks yet.