Band:	Takara
Album:	Eternity - The Best 93-98
Style:	Hard rock
Website:	http://www.takararocks.com
Release date:	1998
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Spotlight
02. Two Hearts Together
03. Restless Heart
04. Fallen Angel
05. Colors Fade
06. When Darkness Falls
07. Days Of Dawn
08. Your Love
09. December
10. Last Mistake
11. Lonely Shade Of Blue
12. Take U Down
13. Your Love 2night
14. Don't Wanna be Alone
15. Blind In Paradise
16. Say U'll Stay
17. Restless Heart [acoustic version]
18. Your Love [acoustic version]

This is my very first contact with Takara, quite strange since it's the all-famous Jeff Soto Scott on vocals (On the first three albums), but I guess no one is able to know every band out there.
And as it's my first contact, it couldn't start better than it just did, with a best of album with the greatest songs from their three first releases, "Eternal Faith" 1993, "Taste of Heaven" 1995 and "Blind in Paradise" 1998.

Takara was formed back in 1987, and only a few months after their creation they did their debut, with a show in Hollywood.
They did go on playing live during 1987-88 and in November 1988 they went to the studio to record their first demo, but their singer wasn't ready to record anything so they asked the producer, Jeff Soto Scott if he could help them out, that was the start of the Takara with Jeff on Vocals, that would hold until 1998.
1990 they recorded 10 songs that would be the debut of Takara, and in 1992 Takara regrouped and in 1993 the debut, "Eternal Faith" was released.
It was a success and sold 15,000 worldwide.
After a short brake Takara started the recordings on their second album, "Taste of Heaven" that was released in may 1995, and it was even a bigger success than the debut, and gave Takara even a US label (Together with one in Europe and one in Japan).
1998 was the year of Takara's third album, "Blind in Paradise".
And later 1998, the biggest split in Takara's history was a fact; everyone except guitars and leader Neal Grusky and bassist Carl Demarco quitted.
The other was replaced and the recordings for the fourth album started in 2000, and in the beginning of 2001 "Perception of Reality" was released.

As I said, this is my first contact with Takara, and if couldn't be a better.
I mean, this is the only good thing with a "Best of " (Compilation), that people that have never heard the band gets a chance to hear their best songs.
Well, I guess that's the official reason why's "Best of" is released, but to often it's released to suck some extra from the audience to bands that have leaved a label, or something.

The songs here are in very high quality, and you can really hear that it's Hardrock ala eighties we are talking about, some songs somehow brings pictures in my mind about old action movies from that decade, car-chases and all that's in it.
And as a fan of Melodic Hardrock in all its forms, this is really a release for me, nice ballads, faster songs, perfect for a party or just for relaxing.
I'm absolutely going to check this band out more closely.
And I recommend you to do the same, because if you want great Hardrock with roots in the eighties (not Glam), this is really something.

Favourite Songs: "Two Hearts Together", "Fallen Angel", "When Darkness Falls", "Your Love (both versions)" and all the others, to many to count them all.