Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The school of thought that argues you should always be seen Chasing The Horizon is arguably more enticing and infinitely more exciting than believing that life can only be fulfilling if caught staring at four walls. Home maybe where the heart is but it is to the far-flung corners of the world in which our imagination and our lust for knowledge is able gather pace, to stretch out beyond what we know is surely the point of being a human being with a mission.

A horizon may move, it is certainly never the same as the one that you gazed upon, perhaps with fear, possibly with longing and questions wrapped in your flowering soul, but the prospect of seeing what is beyond your once limited scope of fancy is the most beautiful thing to conquer, and one that leads superbly on to self-discovery and the seeking of a truth; no matter what land it comes from.

Japan’s Man With A Mission may shroud themselves in the masks of wolves but it with the ferocity and flawlessly timed precision of a lion in which they walk; the shadow of the wolf may haunt the background, however before the eyes and ears of the listener, what comes forth is the stately and grand nobility of the kings in waiting of the Rock jungle.

In songs and refrains such as 2045, Broken People, Please Forgive Me, Break The Contradictions, the superb Dead End In Tokyo, Dog Days and Sleepwalkers, the wolves are set loose, the pack rounds upon the smell of indifference and attacks without mercy, but with absolute honour in the hearts and in the scintillating music they have put together for Chasing The Horizon.  

You can conquer all that is before you, your homeland, foreign shores and bring the population to the point and depth of undoubted loyalty, but if you don’t caress their minds, soothe their hearts with song and passion, they will never truly respect you; in Chasing The Horizon that honour leaps off the album with confidence and taste; a look to the East that has embraced the true sense of Rock with open arms and a smile that you cannot help but love.

Ian D. Hall