Produced by Dirk Schlächterand Kai Hansen
Released: 2001
Gamma Ray's most recent album was a rare miss for this usually most consistent and excellent of pure metal bands, but No World Order! sits among a string of albums starting with 1995's Land of the Free when these guys could virtually do no wrong. Coming two years after the awesome Powerplant, Gamma Ray was again able to bring forth a rock solid album of downright catchy and often remarkably heavy power metal that always strikes the right balance between all its elements. Tackling the subject of the Illuminati, the reptilian order of alien mystics supposedly set to one day rise to dominate human affairs, No World Order! is ablaze with all the blistering dual guitar breaks, infectious riffs, watertight bottom end and hook-laden melodies that makes all of their albums pure heavy metal joy.
Gamma Ray has always been a band that can wear a stunning array of hats throughout the course of an album, and this one is no exception. No World Order! sees them once more shifting musical gears, from the melody-laden speed metal of ‘Dethrone Tyranny' to the Judas Priest-like ‘The Heart of the Unicorn' to the blatantly pop-metal ‘Heaven and Hell' and into the metallic rock mode of ‘New World Order' with its big, fat almost Purplesque riffing, with consummate ease. The ghost of old school Priest raises its head again in ‘Solid', which sounds almost exactly like ‘Rapid Fire' off British Steel. From almost any other band this would come across like outright plagarism, but in the hands of masters like Gamma Ray it's nothing short of a glorious homage.
No World Order! is another masterpiece from the European power metal gods. This is so metal it's gold.
- Induction
- Dethrone Tyranny
- The Heart of the Unicorn
- Heaven or Hell
- New World Order
- Damn the Machine
- Solid
- Fire Below
- Follow Me
- Eagle
- Lake of Tears
Rating: 92%
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