LOUDNESS frontman Minoru Niihara is featured in a new interview with BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai discussing the new album, Seventh Heaven, from his other band XYZ-A. An excerpt from the story is available below:

By Carl Begai

“Back in 1999, I thought I didn’t have any demand as a singer and I seriously considered retiring. It was the guys from XYZ-A who saved me. If it wasn’t for XYZ-A, the current lineup of Loudness would not exist.”

It’s an unexpected admission from vocalist Minoru Niihara, who is best known as the vocalist for the legendary Loudness the world over, but perhaps not that surprising looking back on his career. As the voice of the very first Japanese metal band to make a serious international impact in the early ’80s, Niihara was living the dream, only to have it snuffed out when he was invited to leave the band in 1988 in the interest of cornering the Western market with an American singer (OBSESSION’s Michael Vescera). Stints as a solo artist (1989) and with DED CHAPLIN and SLY through the ’90s followed and were only moderately sucessful. It wasn’t until he hooked up with XYZ-A for their 1999 debut, Asian Typhoon, that things took a turn for the better. The album was a smoker, putting Niihara back on the map and rejuvenating his career. Two years later he reunited with the original Loudness line-up, reclaiming his original post which he owns to this day. Rather than sacrifice one band for the other, however, Niihara has been going strong with both Loudness and XYZ-A ever since.

Unlike Loudness, XYZ-A has never achieved the same level of success, but Niihara is far from discouraged. Settling in to discuss the band’s new record, Seventh Heaven, he knows XYZ-A has hit the sweet spot with their fans following its oddly named but highly praised predecessor, Learn From Yesterday! Live For Today! Hope For Tomorrow!. A pleasant surprise, particularly since the two albums prior to it (IV and Wings) were rather dull and uninspired in comparison.

“When YTT was released, it was recognized by our fans as the best album of our career,” says Niihara. “Every process including songwriting, arrangement, performing, recording worked successfully. I strongly feel that we as a band have gotten so much experience throughout years and it finally paid off.”

Seventh Heaven, like YTT, is a gritty high-energy clattering romp in the spirit of the band’s first two albums, Asian Typhoon and Metalization. It sounds, to these ears at any rate, as if XYZ-A took a long hard look at what made them tick from the start when going in to write the new music. Compared to IV and Wings, XYZ-A in 2013 sounds like a young band high on life and attitude.

“That’s very interesting. We strived to record the sound that you could hear us playing loud and rocking out in the room. Maybe it was good that we managed to record a live-sounding powerful performance. The rhythm section was recorded almost 100% live. We didn’t compare the new music with any of those previous albums. Each of us wrote and arranged as we like and that ultimately became Seventh Heaven. From my experience, songs that are written with intention rarely becomes what you intended them to be.”
“In XYZ-A we’re all writers; the music and lyrics,” he adds. “We go through democratic discussions and decide on which song should be recorded and end up recording songs written by each of us. I guess we’re lucky (laughs). We didn’t have any preconceived idea on direction of songs before recording but we were conscious of the overall balance. For instance, we tried to avoid similar type of songs. Or if a certain type of song is missing, I would write to fill in the hole. In this case, it was a simple ballad. There were no rules or restrictions as to what kind of song you would write. All of us write however and whatever that person wants to write.”

And once again, putting the new XYZ-A album together was a balancing act with Loudness, who released the 2012 album only a few months before Seventh Heaven.

“I started writing for Seventh Heaven after completing the 2012 album, Niihara reveals. “To be exact, we went in for pre-production around August 2012. Loudness and XYZ-A recordings are never done at the same time. We coordinate our schedule so there will be no conflict, therefore we can concentrate on respective projects. I wouldn’t say two-recordings-at-same-time is impossible but it must be pretty tough. I don’t even want to imagine it.”

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The Seventh Heaven tracklist is available below along with the cover art.

‘Rising Anthem’

‘Patriot’s Dream’

‘Initiation’

‘Metal Heads’

‘While You’re Still Young’

‘Real Man’

‘Seventh Heaven’

‘Testament’

‘Tenka Muteki’

‘Madamada Saiaku Yanaide’

‘A Song For You’

‘Stay Hungry! Stay Foolish!’

‘Arigato’

A video for the song ‘Patriot’s Dream’ has been released and can be viewed below: