GAMMA RAY: To the Metal!

Produced by the Spirit of Freedom
Released: 2010

As the pendulum shifts further and further toward retro-sounding bands and more and more extreme forms of metalcore, that Gamma Ray suddenly find themselves struggling for relevancy is no surprise. Over the last few years, this once inconquerable band seems to have hit a few hurdles on their trailblazing path to true power metal glory. Since their late 90s run of four incredible albums in a row, the last decade hasn't been quite so kind: Majesty was hit and miss and Land of the Free II was an inconceived hodge-podge that almost ruined the legacy of the original. In amongst them there's been an almost inordinate number of compilations, boxed sets and double-live CDs and DVDs that always seem to point to the gradual demise of a once-great band.

On To the Metal! the German quartet fall back on Judas Priest and Iron Maiden worship to the point where  Kai Hansen adopts a Halford-like bark a good percentage of the time and the title track is little more than a shameless rip-off of "Metal Gods". It isn't that the album is totally without merit. "Empathy" with its uncharacteristic gentle opening is a great track and "All You Need to Know" has the erstwhile Michael Kiske adding his golden touch. But even here, the grabs from Maiden and Rainbow are just too obvious to ignore and too prominent to be accidental. On the tracks that Hansen doesn't write, Gamma Ray sound much more themselves, without the blatant thievery from their influences. Even so, they aren't exactly creating any real magic, just joyously catchy, triple-vocal melody power metal played at ridiculous speed like they have always done, and there is schmaltzy dreck like "Mother Angel" and oodles of cheese. For the completist, the "deluxe" edition contains a making-of DVD which shall remain unreviewed because, well, seriously why bother?

Even with the flagrant plagarism To the Metal! is at least much better than the last couple of studio albums. You can tell from the artwork that it doesn't break the mould as far as Gamma Ray albums go. While they are incorporating more and more classic metal influences into their music (as least with regard to Hansen's songs), they're still uncompromisingly melodic heavy metal. It ain't Land of the Free, but at least it's not Land of the Free II.

1. Empathy
2. All You Need to Know
3. Time to Live
4. To the Metal
5. Rise
6. Mother Angel
7. Shine Forever
8. Deadlands
9. Chasing Shadows
10. No Need to Cry 

Rating: 70%

GAMMA RAY: No World Order!

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.

1. Induction
2. Dethrone Tyranny
3. The Heart of the Unicorn
4. Heaven or Hell
5. New World Order
6. Damn the Machine
7. Solid
8. Fire Below
9. Follow Me
10. Eagle
11. Lake of Tears

Rating: 92%

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%