#Anthem absolute world 2014 series#

Anthem's deepening career standstill finally got to singer Eizo Sakamoto, who fell out with his bandmates and was replaced by Yukio Morikawa for a string of LPs, namely 1988's Gypsy Ways, 1989's Hunting Time, and 1990's Best collection and No Smoke Without Fire (this last featuring new guitarist Hideaki Nakama).

#Anthem absolute world 2014 series#

This lineup would come to epitomize the band's most successful era, which also produced 1985's Ready to Ride EP and a series of well-received full-length outings in Tightrope (1986), Bound to Break (1987), and the live The Show Carries On (1987). Come 1985's eponymous debut album, Anthem were performing classic heavy metal as viewed through their distinctly Asian vantage point, and featured vocalist Eizo Sakamoto, guitarist Hiroya Fukuda, and drummer Takamasa Ohuchi.

Formed in 1981 by bassist Naoto Shibata, Tokyo's Anthem slowly built a local following despite dealing with the kind of nonstop musician turnover typical of most young bands. Lineup changes and the paradigm shift from hard rock to grunge forced the group to disband in 1992, but they re-formed eight years later and issued a string of albums like Heavy Metal Anthem (2000), Black Empire (2008), and Engraved (2017), which sold well regionally, but found little traction with Western fans.nn It was thanks to the pioneering efforts of Loudness and Bow Wow in the late '70s that Japan truly discovered heavy metal, resulting in a flurry of activity at the start of the next decade, with dozens of new bands vying for attention. The group quickly parlayed great success in their homeland into a slew of international releases, with highlights arriving via Tightrope (1986), Bound to Break (1987), and Gypsy Ways (1988). One of the first major Japanese heavy metal bands, Anthem emerged in the wake of scene leaders Loudness and Earthshaker in the early 1980s.