HEAVY METAL HIPPIES

Heavy Metal Hippies is the eleventh Loudness album, released only in Japan on 21 December 1994. The previous line-up did not last. Bassist Taiji Sawada left, and so did Munetaka Higuchi, a founding member and the band's drummer since 1981; Hirotsugu Homma, Masaki Yamada's old colleague from Ezo, took the drum stool, and Akira Takasaki recorded the bass parts himself. Chris Tsangarides handled recording and mixing. The album holds two things at once: songs continuing the weight of the self-titled record, and songs carrying the sensibility of Ki, the solo album Takasaki was making at the same time. It is the record of the most unsettled stretch in the band's history, the point at which Takasaki was the only founder left.