GAMMA RAY: Land of the Free II

Produced by The Spirit of Freedom

Released: 2007

In many ways power metal bands, particularly the European breed, are the pop groups of the metal world. Not that I don't mind the odd pop band but anyone who listens to commercial radio for longer than half an hour will realise that the majority of them are thoroughly generic, insipid and uninspired acts regurgitating the same similar-sounding over-produced rubbish again and again. It's for this reason I have endured a long love/hate relationship with power metal. At times I can get completely swept up in the exuberance of multi-tracked vocal melodies and galloping pace, but considerably more often I'm turned off by its plastic sound and utter predictability.

Gamma Ray is one power metal band I have always really enjoyed. Their music is made to be enjoyed after all, but they have long been able to do it in a way that elevates them beyond the morass of bands they inspired and even above that the group they sprang from. It says a lot about a group when they can maintain such a level of consistency for such a long time and with this band a lot of it has to do with Kai Hansen's keen sense of pop dynamics and his ability to mesh them with his old-school metal sensibilities. He is quite simply a genius at this and it's probably why, despite some good albums, Helloween has never been the same since he left.

Since 1995's Land of the Free Gamma Ray has lead while everyone else has merely followed. It was probably only a matter of time before they stumbled a little, and in attempting a sequel of one of the finest power metal albums of all time, that time seems to be now. Land of the Free II is a pretty decent half-an-album, with the other half seeming to suffer from the lack of inspiration that also afflicts many of this band's peers. All the standard Gamma Ray elements are soundly in place but occasionally it just falls apart.

"Into the Storm" starts things off in a typically ass-kicking fashion highlighting everything that Gamma Ray does right but they follow it up with a couple of generic songs that are fairly ordinary by this band's standards although "To Mother Earth" has an awesome solo. "Rain" is better, darker and heavier and while "Leaving Hell" is more pop-inflected it's catchier than a bad case of staph in an emergency ward. The next half of Land of the Free II is decidely ordinary, and a patchwork of boring songs like "Opportunity" and others that clearly rip off other bands. "When the World" has a riff in it that is almost exactly Iron Maiden's "Powerslave" and while "Real World" is a good solid foot-stomping metal cranker, it's main hook is lifted directly from "Breaking the Law" by Judas Priest! The enormous 11-minute "Insurrection" more than makes up for many of the album's weaknesses however, but one is left with the feeling that three or four of the songs from the last half of LoTF II could have been omitted without the album suffering in the slightest.

Gamma Ray is still miles out in front of almost everyone else doing this type of thing, but this has taken a bit of the polish off.

1. Into the Storm
2. From the Ashes
3. Rising Again
4. To Mother Earth
5. Rain
6. Leaving Hell
7. Empress
8. When the World
9. Opportunity
10. Real World
11. Hear Me Calling
12. Insurrection

Rating: 68%