TERROR

Terror is the eighteenth Loudness album, released by Tokuma Japan Communications on 7 January 2004. The whole record is built around a theme of horror and dread, and the sleeve design carries it too. The tempos drop and the weight rises into something closer to doom metal, with Black Sabbath audible in the lineage; this is among the heaviest music the band has recorded. It is the fourth album since the reunion, but where the three before it demonstrated what the reassembled four could do, this one works the other way round — a theme fixed first, and the record built to it. The self-cover album Rock Shocks followed that October and Racing in November, making 2004 the busiest release year in the band's history.