The End of the Beginning: Live in Tokyo

Okay, okay, it’s a live album, but that excuse won’t hold for this one. I would like to issue a warning about this release. Not because of that the band Concerto Moon is tremendously bad, they’re really not, but because this live album is so far from well-considered it’s ridiculous.

Concerto Moon is among the more successful Japanese Metal acts and they’re of course heavily influenced by guitar god Yngwie Malmsteen and neo-classical power metal bands like Stratovarius. German Limb Productions problably thought that it might be a good idea to release a live album as a follow up to three succesful studio albums. Well, that’s nice and to give the fans something extra we’ll throw in a new single (“When the moon cries”) on the record as well, both in normal version and a pointless instrumental version. Not a very good song by the way, but likely to be exclusive for this album so that all fans must buy this album to get hold of it (did I hear someone yell download?). Then some bright guy comes up with the brilliant idea of including a second CD, although with the same songs in a crappy video version, only to be seen in a small window on your computer in low resolution.

Then we just have to choose a specific concert to record the music from. Somehow they manage to pick one where the technicians must have a serious hangover because the singer is nowhere to be heard. I’ve tried my very best to discern any of the words he is screaming from somewhere far beyond the horizon, only to fail miserably. When they have song material like the magnificent “King of the Judas” and “Victim of Desire”, which are great on the studio albums, with awesome guitars and splendid choruses, this release just feels like a waste. It’s almost like an instrumental album, except for the screaming crowds. Since this is a double CD, they obviously have to charge extra and I fell for it. Why me, why me?!