Freedom Call
Freedom Call -
Stairway To Fairyland 1999 (Ger)
Rating:
90
An awesome debut by the germans, featuring Dan Zimmermann (Gamma Ray) on drums.
Dan has togheter with Chris Bay created all songs. No wonder this has turned out
as good as this. Stairway To A Fairyland contains all that which is expected,
all from fast, energic riffs to realy heavy riffs to great, and beautiful melody
lines and the typical power metal sing-a-long chouruses. Not any particulary
song that stands out, but to mension a few, Shine On, with a beautiful symphonic
intro with a cool guitar lead, which turns into an heavy as hell song with an
amazing chorus. Graceland, with an dark intro and simply some off the best riffs
you've probaly ever heard in power metal, and you feel like jumping up and down,
screaming the lyrics togheter with Chris. Any fans off melodical and powerfull
metal with some self respect should own this one.
Freedom Call
- Crystal Empire 2001 (Ger)
Rating:
95
Freedom Call returns again with yet another great release, Allready when I heard
them play some new songs at their gig here in Norway togheter with HammerFall
and Virgin Steele, I knew that something good was to be released. Allthough
nothing much have changed musically they have changed, and that to the better.
They have become more symphonic and maybe a little better vocal performance by
Chris Bay, but still this is very similar to their debut, stairway to Fairyland.
For new fans buy both, they who have their first one buy this one.
Flax - Monster Tapes 1980
(Nor)
Rating:
85
The Norwegian heavy rock outfits second record. The drummer, Willy Bendiksen
should be know to fans of Høst and Road. The songs on the record is very
different from each other, like the uptempo "City Man", the slow seventhies rock
song "A Very fine hobby" and the cover version of Cactus's "No Need To Worry"
which is an blues tune. "Dimitrij (The Lover Boy) is a more uptempo rock n' roll
tune in the same vein as "city man". This Flax record isn't extremly heavy but
it's a very god rock album. The hardest rocker and probably the best song is "A
Pain In The Ass". One of my other favorites are "Sensless", which is a quite
melodical rocker with some minor progressive influences and a flute. I don't
know which bands I should compare Flax with but it's quite ordinary late 70ies
early 80ies type of hardrock. Anyways the record is enjoyable and if you find
this one on a record fair for a cheap price I would recommend it. I don't think
it has been released on CD, but it's always fun go hunting for old records, but
If you find the first record your very lucky - it's rated at an extremely high
price.