Band:	Nameless One
Album:	Thousand Memories And Nameless Sword
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	October 07, 2014
A review by:	deadone

01. Dokoku No Tanzanite
02. Yuyami Ni Kiyu
03. Sekibaku No [hantom
04. Kakusei No Artanis
05. Akatuki No Machi
06. Lothlorien No Oka De

There's many in the metal community that still miss the halcyon days of Finnish superstars Children Of Bodom when they happily shredded their ways into our hearts with albums like Something Wild and Hatebreeder. And since then many have tried and failed to capture the youthful exuberance of those early albums. So it's up to a bunch of young Japanese upstarts to accomplish what even the mighty Children Of Bodom has failed to do since, let alone a legion of imitators.

So as you can see from above Nameless One essentially plays extreme power metal albeit with occasional crossovers into more melodic death metal territory. The band claims an old school heavy metal influence and this is quite apparent throughout, be it chuggy and gallop riffs, catchy hooks, old school leads, 1980s guitars tones and general old school song structure.

The one major difference between Nameless One and their Finnish brethren is the lack of keyboardist. This is no disadvantage as the guitars more than make up for it. The bass playing is also a bit more adventurous occasionally which adds a different element. In fact one finds themselves wishing they let the bass player go nuts a bit more often. Vocals follow in the traditional extreme power/melodic death vein but do occasionally venture into more guttural territory similar to Johan Hegg's work on Amon Amarth.

The end result is uplifting and energetic extreme metal with enough catchiness and swirling leads to keep one interested. It does start losing some of its momentum by the fourth track, "Kakusei No Artanis," but it never drops the ball completely. The only major style change is the last track which slows down and switches to a more melodic death metal meets 1980s heavy metal style. Keeping the release as a shorter 6 song EP also helps keep it focused.

Thousand Memories And Nameless Sword is an impressive debut for a very young band and especially impressive in a genre that has been over-saturated for many years now. Sure it's essentially a Children Of Bodom clone but they do it convincingly enough and it's a helluva lot of a fun to listen to. And in the end, that's the most important thing!