It would be a grave mistake to assume that the new album by Gamma Ray from Hamburg merely picks up a current trend, inspired by Queensrÿche’s Operation Mindcrime 2, and Helloween’s Keeper Of The Seven Keys 3. Although Land Of The Free – II, the current album release by the group surrounding guitarist/vocalist Kai Hansen, consciously refers to their 1995 classic, they have come up with a recording that is exciting, fresh and contemporary in every respect. The only reference to their milestone release from 12 years ago is the general stylistic orientation of the new material. “After Majestic, we all agreed that the style of the new album’s songwriting had to be clear and unambiguous instead of fraying out into all kinds of different directions,” vocalist and guitarist Kai Hansen explains. “Majestic presented Gamma Ray’s dark side, while its predecessor, No World Order, was more of an eighties-inspired record. This time we wanted to turn our attention to a side of the band that has always been our greatest strength: positive power, as featured on Land Of The Free I.” After the classic album kept coming up in various discussions among the band members, Gamma Ray arrived at the only logical conclusion. Hansen: “We said to ourselves: Why not write Part II, seeing that people keep comparing our releases to Land I anyway.”
Gamma Ray produced their new album themselves. All four musicians, Kai Hansen, Henjo Richter (guitar), Dirk Schlächter (bass) and Daniel Zimmermann (drums), are experienced enough to translate their ideas at the studio - as the brilliant results of their previous self-produced albums prove. But for the first time in ages, the band allowed themselves the luxury of enlisting outside support for certain stages of the recording process. “We wanted to have a clear head in some areas to be able to concentrate on the important things,” Hansen explains the enlistment of Tommy Newton (Helloween, UFO, etc.) and his Area 51 studio in Celle, where the new material was mixed. Newton also took care of the drum parts as a sound engineer at Gamma Ray’s own studio, allowing the band to focus on guitar arrangements and vocals. “Land Of The Free – II is atmospherically extremely dense, with lots of overdub guitars and choirs, the way Queen used to have them, making the album almost orchestral, without neglecting Gamma Ray’s typical metallic toughness, based on the multi-layered guitar sounds and vocals. Excessive keyboard parts weren’t even necessary.”
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