How the hell did 20 years go by? I won’t forget the shock I had when we received the promo CD of the debut album of Tak Matsumoto’s band featuring Jack Blades & Eric Martin. Modern hard rock with incredible production and songs destined for arenas around the world. In fact, when I learned that Tak Matsumoto is a legendary name in his native Japan with millions of records sold, my interest became even more intense. So you can understand how I felt when Jack Blades revealed in an interview with us a few months earlier that TMG’s second album was ready! So simple…completely out of nowhere!
The holy trinity of Blades/Martin/Matsumoto is joined this time by Matt Sorum and the result is again of high quality but clearly inferior to the first album. This doesn’t mean that “TMG II” is bad…it’s just slightly below our high expectations. The main reason for this is that the songs don’t have that catchy and uplifting character of the first album. However, we are talking about a “big” album in the sense that it has a massive production reminiscent of the glorious times of the past. Moreover, there are 4 tracks that bring something of the aura of “TMG I”. These are “Crash Down Love”, “My Life”, “Guitar Hero” and the absolute highlight for me personally, the amazing “Eternal Flames” in which Babymetal guests on and it is by far the most “catchy” track because of its… dance metal character!
“TMG II” is a good release with some remarkable songs, fantastic production, flawless performance but also with less quality songs compared to the masterpiece debut. Of course, the truth is that it would almost by definition be impossible for “TMG II” to match the unbelievable compositional level of the debut. Nevertheless, we’re talking about a good album and that has its own significance.
Highlight: The whole artwork is indicative of the attention Tak Matsumoto pays to all the details of his releases.
