X JAPAN — Jealousy (review)

X JAPAN — Jealousy album cover Album · 1991 · Power Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Stephen
X Japan enjoyed a breakthrough success after releasing the critically acclaimed album, "Blue Blood" in 1989 and maintained their peak performance through their third album, "Jealousy", in 1991. X Japan was considered a pioneer in visual kei that's inspired many newer bands such as Glay, Luna Sea, and L'arc~en~ciel, a unique appearances that combined the elements from glam, goth, punk, and usually involving androgynous clothing style as well. "Jealousy" displayed a very diverse musical style of X Japan, ranging from power metal, melodic heavy metal, hard rock, thrash, and ballads.

"Silent Jealousy", which is one of their most popular track and also a concert-regular, is a brilliant power metal piece showing Yoshiki’s brutal side behind the drumkit while still emphasizes the song on the melodic harmonies of guitars and vocal. "Miscast" and "Desperate Angel" slower the tempo and both are great tracks with the latter featured a thrilling instrumental duel on the interlude part. "Voiceless Screaming" is a breezy acoustical ballad with Toshi's soothing voice brought to the front. Some furious thrashy riffs were unleashed on "Stab Me In The Back" while the instrumental experimentation of "Love Replica" is sadly my least fave track. Came on next, "Joker", a catchy hard rock which is a track that was loved by many fans. "Say Anything" is an epic AOR-ballad, a timeless classic with an anguish lyric, listen to Hide's pulse pounding guitar solo, you can feel the sorrow carved inside the agonizing notes, just beautiful.

X Japan is a very interesting band. All of the members are extremely-talented and skillful musicians. The mastermind, Yoshiki, for example, is a prominent pianist, songwriter, producer, and drummer at the same time. This is the last album to feature bassist Taiji Sawada and also one of the greatest legacies left by the late Hide who committed suicide in 1998. My only complaint on this album is if you count out three instrumental tracks here, you only get 7 tracks, and that's pretty short for a full-length album, otherwise this deserved a solid nine, and together with "Blue Blood", are my all-time favorite X Japan releases.

Bottomline : The Visual Shock still riding high!
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