"Made In Japan" is, hands down, the darkest album FTB ever made. Once the listener gets past a rather odd opening track (a happy sounding radio ad, advertising one of the band's gigs in Canada,) they're instantaneously plunged into a well of doom that makes contemporary Sabbath albums sound perky by comparison. Yes, other FTB albums had their share of darkness, but nowhere was it so complete, so oppressive, so relentless.
It bears noting that Ishima's guitar can buzz and twitch in ways that Western guitarists never touched. Whereas Tony Iommi took the blues and morphed it into a kind of occult boogie, and Jimmy Page covered it in testosterone and bravado, Ishima takes the blues and turns it in on itself, all serpentine and mysterious, with an intensity that is still startling now. It's no surprise that he later moved to the sitarla, a custom instrument that splits the difference between guitar and sitar. Where "Satori" earned his status as a solo guitar God, his work on "Made In Japan" shows he could shine in the service of a song as well."
- Text taken from Jrawk
Named 18th best japrock album in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler Top 50.
Flower Travellin' Band - Made in Japan
- Introduction
- Unaware
- Aw Give Me Air
- Kamikaze
- Hiroshima
- Spasms
- Heaven and Hell
- That's All
