Review by Rexorcist for Gamma Ray - Land of the Free (1995)

Helloween may have been the ones to pioneer the anthemic flow of power metal by singing about freedom and independence, but Gamma Ray were the ones to tell stories out of that feeling, and Land of the Free is a collection of those stories.  I find myself putting on their incredible opener, "Rebellion in Dreamland" every now and then.  The song is already incredible even if you have a bad speaker, but there are so many faint little details you catch with headphones, the only way to properly listen to this album.  Its melodramatic feeling is so empowering it borders on alcoholic.  But it's never too much because it never resorts to cheesy instrumentations like orchestral moments.  It's all one heavy metal band screaming for freedom, the way metal should be.  And the best part, the whole album follows in this vein.  The direct follow-up, "Man on a Mission" isn't really one for melody, but it's certainly one for empowerment.  There's no real reason for the next track, "Fairytale," to not be connected to "Man on a Mission," though.

Throughout the whole album, Gamma Ray switches from hyperspeed riffs to empowering anthems to beautiful melodies to occasional trumpeting segues, and the songs that aren't brilliant still have short bursts of brilliance, whether it be an incredible solo or just seriously heavy atmosphere.  "Gods of Deliverance" is an example of the sheer heaviness driving a song when the riffs can be a little hard to hear under the production.  However, this doesn't keep the album from boasting its presence better than Ramones ever did.  And an example of a melodic song is "Farewell," which gets right down to the nitty-gritty of the ballads that metal bands like to include in between solid thrashers like "Salvation's Calling."  There are even hints of prog metal, such as in the largely prog and speed-influenced Land of the Free, which likes to shift between a soft-spoken astral presence and bursts of metal thrashing.

How could I call myself a metal fan and not recommend this?  Every time I listen to it, I find a lot of things I like, and a few little things I don't like, but those little things are never enough to keep it from a five-star rating.  Whenever you need to feel independent or you feel like life has you in a cage, you need to just play one song from this album.  And if you're a decent human being, you'll likely play the whole damn thing.  Either that or "Rebellion" ten times in a row.