MISTY MOON

Outer Limits is a japanese band that sings in english and japanese, and when english is sung, the band sounds awful. However, these players have some fine skills! When there is no singing, the band sounds wonderful. The violinist and the keyboardists are responsible for these symphonic climates. This band is influenced by other symphonic bands like The Enid, Teru's Symphonia and so on. The first song includes no vocals, but good symphonic melodies. The song comes after the previous instrumental goodie has some awful vocals in english that sound awful, but when it becomes instrumental it can be considered lovely. The third song is instrumental, and it provides me with listening enjoyment. The fourth song has vocals in japanese, and they are adequate, but the song isn't great because it's quite cheesy at times. The last song ends this album with some fine melodies played with a violin and keyboards beautifully. In a nutshell, This album has some great moments, however, it also has some bloody awful parts especially when it comes to the english vocals. Moreover, good but but non-essential!

- 4 1/2 stars reallly. There's no very good vocals here, but isn't too bad after all. The musical skill of the members of this band are really good and provides some really good moments in the album: the instrumental Satured solution, Spanish labyrinth (one of my favourites songs in the album with breakes of electric / acoustic guitars and violins) and most of the Prelude and Misty Moon. This is probably not a masterpiece, but for a debut album is close to that.

A few weeks ago I reviewed the outstanding new album Stromatolite by this legendary Japanese progrock band, this CD is still my favorite 2007 release, what a comeback after so many years! Here's a review about their first effort entitled Misty Moon, the cover features a small puppet lying besides the belly of a young woman, incredible how many Japanese album covers are in the vein of this subject!

The first composition Prelude is inspired by Carl Off's Carmina Burana (known from The Omen) with classical sounding keyboards (evoking The Enid), cheerful violinplay and the in Japan holy Mellotron. The titletrack contains an intro with wailing violin, followed by a catchy rhythm delivering lots of changing climates (including magnicifent interplay between keyboards and violin). The fluent song Saturated Solution has many synthesizer flights and a bass - and violinsolo. The next track is Subetawa - Kazenoyouni, an alternating composition with many interesting musical ideas with splashes of violin, Mellotron and biting, Fripperish guitar. Unfortunately the vocals are very mediocre. This album ends with the compelling song Spanish Labyrinth: it starts with a flamenco guitar featuring the warm tremolo technique and I love the distinctive Morish atmosphere in this exciting composition.

Great prog from the Far East, highly recommended!

The mid 1980s were dark days for progressive rock, but Japan bore the torch through the decade that taste forgot, and Outer Limits might be the best of the lot. Misty Moon, their debut, is one of the finest violin driven progressive albums of any era, in many ways more appealing than those of King Crimson a decade earlier. The work of Takashi Kawaguchi on his instrument, combined with the group's balanced blend of more traditional symphonic prog participants (including the unfairly maligned yet understated vocal sections) really raise the bar. This is an album that can be appreciated over multiple listens. A piece that passes me by one day awakens me the next time around, and vice versa. All of the tracks are very good, from the overture-like "Prelude" through to the aptly named and triumphant "Spanish Labyrinth". The whole experience of listening to this expertly compiled effort is like one of moving through a labyrinth, being at turns lost, inspired and found again. The melodies and arrangements are delightfully angular yet accessible. While not exactly pushing the outer limits of prog, this fine first album is an optimal place to start your mist-filled exploration of Japanese prog.

Excellent debut album by Outer Limits from Japan . From the first notes you can recognize that they are influenced by King Crimson on violin parts and guitars and some UK hints here and there specially on keyes. The vocal parts are sung in english and japaneze and i think are the weakest element here. Very fine, smooth and inventiv are the violin parts made by Takashi Kawaguchi, he remaind me at some point of Edie Jobson, but less symhonic in aproach, close to what King Crimson done a decade earlier. Now the best musician on this album is to me Tadashi Ishikawa - the bass player, he is absolute excellent what he does with the instrument. He has some solo parts on piece Misty Moon, and is damn good, and on the rest of the pieces he does a very good job. The best pieces are all, but with a plus on instrumental ones, Saturated Solution - the most symphonic piece from here with very strong key passages, simply great and the last track of the album Spanish Labyrinth - again marvelous spanish guitar intro and after that a bursting of energy and freash ideas. Finally, this is a great album, specialy because it was released in dark days of prog , mid '80's. He has everything to became a more respected album that is seen today. Recommended and quite underrated by many prog listners. 4 stars for sure, among the best japanese bands ever.

Among the best, if not the best, Japanese Prog bands of the 80's, Outer Limits possibly existed since the start of the decade and their early line-up even featured bassist Tadashi Sugimoto (from Pazzo Fanfano Di Musica project), who left the group prior to the debut album.The rest of the early crew were keyboardist Shusei Tsukamoto, drummer Nobuykuki Sakurai, guitarist Takashi Aramaki, violinist Takashi Kawaguchi, bassist Tadashi Ishikawa and singer Tomoki Ueno.The band released the first album ''Misty moon'' in 1985, distributed by Made In Japan Records.

As many Japanese groups of the time, Outer Limits played Classical-influenced Progressive Rock, but unlike many of their compatriots, who had a very synth-drenched style of music, the symphonic influences of the album were proposed through the extended use of violin and the Classical orchestrations.Thus, the band sounded like the Asian version of U.K. and THE ENID, delivering bombastic groovy parts with deep bass work combined with awesome violin interludes of a Classical nature and lots of symphonic arrangements.The result was an album blending the romantic flavor of Symphonic Rock with more upbeat tunes, while three out of the four tracks of the original issue clock at or exceed the 10 min. mark.No need to say there is some huge room for instrumental workouts, full of captivating melodies, angular violin solos, muscled rhythmic parts and dominant breaks. and The limited vocals come in English with a very JOHN WETTON-like style of singing and far from the annoying, heavily accented color of most Japanese singers.The shortest track ''Saturated Solution'' contains also some excellent synth runs in full interplays with Kawaguchi's violin, creating a bombastic symphonic atmosphere.

One of the best Prog albums of the 80's out of Japan.Non-commercial, grandiose symphonic-oriented Progressive Rock, characterized by series of monster instrumental themes of a superb composing value.Highly recommended.

OUTER LIMITS from Japan started out as a six piece band although the keyboards, bass and guitar are all performed by two different musicians maybe because of availability or needing a more technical player I'm not sure but the violin, vocals and drums are all done by the same musicians throughout. This is their debut from 1985 and part of my complaint is that 80's flavour in the guitar, vocals and synths at times. This is especially strong on the title track which is the longest at almost 14 minutes.

Vocals are weak and in both Japanese and English. Some mellotron on a couple of tracks but not a lot and I would say the guitar gets a minor role with the violin and synths being the driving force along with the drums and bass. And there's some great sounding bass on here. I do like how they add samples like on the opener we hear a door slam shut then footsteps, heavy breathing and the phone being dialled quickly. Also the wind to open that long title track is cool. I just have a tough time with parts of those first four tracks but I feel it ends very strong with the last two songs.

All a matter of taste I suppose but a lot of people whose opinions I respect have given this 4 stars but I just don't get it at this point.