To release a double live album after only three studio albums seems a little unnecessary to me, even though I love
Freedom Call a lot. That the sound on Live Invasion is very polished and seems like it has been shined up a whole lot in a studio, doesn't exactly change my mind on the matter. Only one thing justifies this release to me, and that is disc two, which includes the entire Taragon mini album, only released in France prior to this.
The polished, not-very-live like feeling makes this record appear more like a Best Of, and with all the great songs, it's a nice starting point for future fans. The album contains four songs from each of the band's studio albums, and the live recordings were done in Düsseldorf, Munich and Stuttgart in 2002. Apart from Chris Bay's vocals bearing witness that this is live, there's nothing really, that creates a vision of being at a concert. Yes, there are the small mistakes (but not many), and the (German) smalltalk between songs, but the audience can be heard only momentarily, and the over polished production leaves me missing some more roughness.
Of course the songs themselves, to me, are always worth listening to, the catchy chorus based sing a long tune
Freedom Call, the atmospheric and hyper melodic
Tears Of Taragon and the epic
The Quest being among my favorites.
Disc two: As mentioned the disc contains the Taragon Mcd and furthermore two covertracks.
Warriors Of Light is lyrically a predecessor to both
Warriors and
Land Of Light from the
Eternity album. A
Queen-like rhythm (ala
We Will Rock You) starts the song, and the nice melodyline sets in. Melodic Power Metal as we are used to from these gentlemen, and as always of very high quality.
Well, it's fun how much of a fashion it has become for Metal bands to do a cover of some 80's pop song, whatever the point may be? Here it is Ultrvox' classic
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes that has been taking under treatment, which have resulted in an okay, but to me somehow needless cover song. The song has been added some more keyboard, double bass drums and a little more tempo.
Wow,
Heart Of The Brave is a fantastic song, probably one of the best
Freedom Call songs ever! A bombastic, majestic choir arrangement makes up the core of this song, but unlike a lot of this type of tunes, it isn't the only force. The verse is very well written as well, highly melodic and performed with great skill! Once again a proof that
Freedom Call are masters of the Melodic Metal sound!
The next track is the song
Tears Of Taragon as we know it from the debut album,
Stairway To Fairyland. In the end the song fades and the legend of the people of Taragon, a fantasy story, which
Freedom Call's lyrics are made upon, is told.
None other than
Biff Byford does the narration, and his expressional voice and perfect English pronunciation sounds awesome! It sounds like he puts a lot of feelings into reading the dramatic story out loud. A cool experience for fans!
Here ends the Taragon EP itself, but two cover tracks have been added to the disc, first is a song called
Hiroshima from the band
Wishful Thinking, which I had never heard before. It sounds like some sort of anti war song, with oriental passages, and presents itself as a beautiful, atmospheric tune, and also a song I wouldn't expect
Freedom Call to cover. A fresh breath! The cover of
Helloween's Dr. Stein is a more obvious choice, and this song fits
Freedom Call's happy vibe. A satisfying cover version, though I would have liked them to rearrange it some more.
This record is worth buying for people who don't know
Freedom Call, but are curious what the band sounds like, as well as for fans, who don't own the Taragon Mcd! For fans that already own the Mcd, it's not a must.
Written by
Nina Friday, June 25, 2004
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