Album Review
Title:  Pulse
Artist:  The Back Horn
Release date:  September 3, 2008
www.thebackhorn.com/

     Pulse rushes straight through you like electricity.  It's a magic carpet ride of punk rock flavored by old school metal and psychedelic rock from the '70s.  The tracks are at once familiar and new, gritty sounds and polished performances, but not over produced.  Yamada's forceful singing, sometimes off key and sometimes clipped, is like spoken word.  It's filled with punctuation, un-pretty and powerful.

     "Sekai wo ute" intros fast and heavy.  The staccato canon fire of the drums wars with the desperate sound of guitars, cymbals crashing and all that cacophony moving steadily and purposefully forward.  "Kakusei," the single before Pulse, fits perfectly into the buildup of music, the first riff reminiscent of Black Sabbath.

     The throwback to old school music filters into the psychedelic ballad, "Kagami."  An opposite mirror to the other songs on the album with it's quiet tone and the beautiful slide from major to minor notes in the chorus.  The Back Horn gets right back into the groove of things with Pulse, barely pausing for air with the breathe and range of their songs in this heady rush of an album.

TRACKLIST
1. Sekai wo ute
2. Freude
3. Kakusei
4. Sazameku Highway
5. Kagami
6. Byakuya
7. Hotaru
8. Gladiator
9. Ningen
10. Wana
11. Umare yuku hikari