It's that time again; Kai "The Happiest Man in Power Metal" Hansen is back with his bands 9th album
Land of The Free II. And watch out because this time he's happier than he has been in a fair while!
Gamma Rays last album Majestic was a slightly darker affair than us
Gamma Ray fans were used to. I'm not saying that it was a full-on Doom album or anything but it didn't seem full of that lust for life that Hansen is renowned for. Fear ye not brothers and sisters, this one sees him back in full on joyful melodic mode.
In a move more than likely inspired by his old band
Helloween's pretty successful attempt to resurrect past glories with Keeper of The Seven Keys- The Legacy in 2005, Kai has elected to record a sequel to the 1995 fan favourite Land of The Free.
Revisiting old albums can be more than a little hit and miss, the band need to decide if they are going to play it safe and make a carbon copy of what went before or strive to update and give a new lease of life to a concept which brought them so much success. In this respect
Land of The Free II is a strange release. It doesn't really follow up on any sort of storyline from its predecessor and to be honest it really has little or nothing to do with it apart from keeping close to that records positive form of Power Metal.
Therein lays this records problem, in setting the expectations high by harking back to such a respected album they needed to pull something spectacular out of the bag. In the main I'm pleased to announce that the record succeeds in delivering some mighty slabs of melodic metal but it does suffer from some moments of slightly tired filler.
Curiously enough there is not really one bad song to single out, but there are moments in almost every song where you hear riffs and melodies that have been done before and done better (and not just by
Gamma Ray, but we will get to that in a moment)
I think that it says something for the album when my highlight is
The Real World which even on first listen it becomes apparent that it's basically just a re-write of the
Helloween classic I Want Out. Just listen to that intro riff, the bridge section at 2.59, the solo just after that bridge or hell, how about the whole bloody song.
Admittedly
Gamma Ray have been doing this sort of thing for years and when they do it this well then I just have to imagine that cheeky smile on Kai's face, shrug my shoulders and let them away with it every single time.
One thing that I can't totally excuse is the bands growing obsession for the wholesale theft of other bands riffs. Quite frankly even Lionel Hutz, the bumbling lawyer from The Simpsons could take
Gamma Ray to court on behalf of Steve Harris and win him a tidy sum of money. Plus Steve would get himself a smoking monkey into the bargain!
The start of
When The World is very, very similar (by which I mean pretty much identical) to Maiden's Flash of The Blade and how Kai ever thought that he could pass off the middle section of
Opportunity as his own when its been lifted straight from the middle section of Rime of The Ancient Mariner (or the start of the Clairvoyant if your prefer) only he knows. Its not that it stops them from both being good songs, in fact they are both great but it's a little disconcerting to listen a song and spend five minutes wondering where you heard it before.
Another case for the prosecution is
Empress of the Dawn...sorry
Princess of the Dark...I mean just plain old
Empress. If this song wasn't written after listening to the closing track on Accept's Restless and Wild then I'll be greatly surprised. It doesn't really borrow any riffs as such but just feels in someway similar, even down to the lead guitar "Woh woh woh" section at 3.42. But again it's done so well that the Judge would just ruffle Hansen's hair, wink and let him off with a warning.
Leaving aside the naughty
appropriation of classic riffs you will notice that I really don't have anything particularly bad to say about this release. Basically that's because even after several listens I just can't pin point what it is that this album lacks. Just about every song has the sort of pace, uplifting melody, impressive lead work (check out the splendid closer
Insurrection for proof that Hansen can still solo with the best of them) and soaring choruses that we expect from a
Gamma Ray release.
There are all happy moments, there are sad moments and there are fist in the air moments that have become the hallmark this bands work.
But perhaps then, that lack of spark is the problem. After 20 odd years in the game all Kai has to offer on this release is moments of glory from both his own and Metal's past given a shiny new coat of paint and perhaps a better guitar solo or faster drum fill. And in that respect the title of Land of The Free II is perhaps merited. It's not a new piece of work as such but merely a continuation of what has gone before.
Written by
Stuart Thursday, January 3, 2008
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