ILLUSION FORCE

They do things differently in Japan. In many ways, ILLUSION FORCE are the archetypal, over-the-top power metal band, with the customary penchant for extreme technicality and virtuoso excess. But while their debut album delivers the extravagant goods in no uncertain terms, these young swashbucklers have a weird streak a mile wide. For example, "Halfana" begins with a ballad so sugary and overwrought that it threatens to alienate anyone looking for the expected face-melting histrionics. "Kaleidoscopic" is a musical theatre fever dream made from hot treacle and stardust, and a genuinely bizarre way for ILLUSION FORCE to make their triumphant entrance. It's all rather endearing.

Sticking around to find out what happens next turns out to be well worth the effort, incidentally. Thereafter, this inordinately gifted quintet let rip with uproarious abandon, hitting DRAGONFORCE-like levels of speed and intensity, while smothering everything with hyper-polished sonic opulence, replete with a glassy, futuristic sheen. Frontman Jinn Jeon's melodies are absurdly upbeat and memorable. Guitar solos erupt like giant, outdoor firework displays. Everything sounds shiny and immaculate: a mad, transcendental conflagration of beauty and brute force. Songs like the title track and "Miracle Superior" make a virtue of careering along at insane speeds, with twinkly eyed vocal lines skimming elegantly across the juggernaut's roof. Intricate arrangements blossom from rare gaps in the barrage, but despite more ballads ("The Serene Valley" is Disney metal at its finest) and some purposefully theatrical and symphonic touches, "Halfana" never recoils from its red-blooded heavy metal principles.

ILLUSION FORCE are a ferocious proposition. "Captan #5" is a punishing, hell-for-leather sprint, with another huge, soaring melody bringing light to its furious, dark undertow. The grimly gothic "Protector Of The Stars" is melodramatic, progged-out cabaret doom and an absolute riot. Wearing their creative ambitions lightly, ILLUSION FORCE could perhaps have made a little more of the album's centerpiece: the four-part "Hibari". Essentially four distinct songs, almost casually glued together, it rattles through the Japanese quintet's diverse and dynamic repertoire with breathless urgency, but hints at progressive intentions that have yet to be fully explored. The bombastic rush of "A Lost Cantata" and the stadium-sized emoting of "Whisper Of The Eternity" are enjoyable enough, but it is the surreally cinematic crescendos and chaos of "Hirabi, Pt.III: Mobius" that impresses the most. At times as dense and overwhelming as EMPEROR, but still rooted in melodic metal tradition, it is an extraordinary, perfectly executed moment. Concluding part "Luminescent Galaxies" is more straightforward: textbook extreme power metal that teeters masterfully on the edge of being a bit too fucking fast.

Wrapping things up with the exuberantly saccharine and QUEEN-saluting "Bittersweet '53", genuinely berserk, more-is-more manifesto "Serendipitous", and the turbocharged psycho-shuffle of "Illusion Parade", ILLUSION FORCE are a gloriously unhinged addition to a genre that can always do with a few more batshit, elite-level protagonists.