From what was originally intended to be a solo album by Concerto Moon guitarist Norifumi Shima, came a collaboration between the Japanese guitarist and Sabre Tiger vocalist Takenori Shimoyama. The pair first met back in 1998 after their respective bands played together at the Meguro Rock – May Kann concert hall in Tokyo and a strong friendship was formed. In September 1999, singer Takao Ozaki had left Concerto Moon and guitarist Shima had decided to pursue a solo album. He had talked with Takenori Shimoyama about working on a couple of tracks the album with him but after getting together they soon discovered they had much in common musically and the project blossomed into what has become Double Dealer. During their search for additional musicians for the project, they settled on the obvious applicants: Kohsaku Mitani (bass, Concerto Moon), Yoshio Isoda (drums, Saber Tiger) and Toshiyuki Koike (keyboards, Concerto Moon), thus completing the line up for the new band.

Double Dealer worked in the studio on their debut album from February to April 2000. The players came to the studio with a truly breathtaking energy that became abundantly evident on the ten songs they recorded for the album. The album was released in Japan in Summer 2000 and the reactions from the press were overwhelming. Japan’s most important and influential metal magazine, BURRN! gave the album 93 points out of 100 and also supported the concerts Double Dealer subsequently gave in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. The band’s reputation spread to Europe and finally in November 2000, the band came over to give their debut performance in front of a full house at Paris’ famed Elysee Montmartre concert hall.

Double Dealer are now ready to capitalise on their quick success with the release of a second studio album, Deride At The Top. Continuing in the same style as their debut, the band’s new output displays an exciting mixture of hard hitting guitar riffs, agile rhythms, heavy organ playing and melodic vocal lines. The high speed opener ‘My Straight Shout Squeezed My Soul’ ably demonstrates the band’s virtuosity, combining all the elements of melodic metal with precision accuracy. ‘Draw A Curtain’ underlines the band’s love of their hard rock heroes Deep Purple and Rainbow, while the track ‘If The Fate Includes All The Love’ showcases their diversity with its melancholic acoustic guitar and passionate string section. The album’s twelve tracks are rounded off with a new version of the Concerto Moon classic ‘Time To Die’, which provides a fitting finale.