Gamma Ray's Reviews
No World Order (Average Rating: 9.00 out of 10)
Hate to do this, but I've got to be honest. (Rated this album with 4 out of 10)
Reviewed by
Orion Crystal Ice
from Jacksonville, FL, USA
OK. Don't get me wrong. I'm a HUGE Gamma Ray fan. They may be my favorite band. And I'm a huge fan of heavy music and a lot of power metal in general also, and any good music really. But I've got to say - in my opinion - this is the weakest GR album to date. Alright, so the expectations after 3 great albums in a row (Land Of The Free, Somewhere Out In Space, Powerplant) plus a superbly done best of (Blast From The Past) were super high. And it's hard to keep up such a streak, especially with a change of members between two of those albums. But I've still got to be honest with my 2-star rating. (2 1/2 if they had halves too)No World Order seems to start out great, with the intro (Induction) hitting on a pretty fresh topic, the Illuminati. This sets the stage for the whole album, and does so superbly. Then crashes in Dethrone Tyranny, an aggressive fast Dan Zimmermann-penned number. Nice one there. You'll then work your way through Heart Of A Unicorn, Heaven Or Hell, New World Order, and the rest of the CD. And it all seems pretty good the first time around. But then you start noticing things.. - several songs have parts that blatantly sound like pieces from other bands, or even past Gamma Ray songs. Examples: The most obvious would be Solid, which has a main riff structure and tempo identical to Judas Priest's Rapid Fire. Heart Of A Unicorn has another Priest-ism, this time a *distinct* Painkiller feel. Dethrone Tyranny comes DANGEROUSLY close to taking the chorus melody from the Gamma Ray song Land Of The Free. Eagle unapologetically rips a main melody from another Gamma Ray song, Somewhere Out In Space, to provide it's chorus. Heaven Or Hell takes the Helloween 'I Want Out' (also a Kai Hansen piece) song structure formula and turns it inside out and backwards. Speaking of I Want Out, the end part of the New World Order solo just BARELY saves itself from completely plagarizing the harmony part melody in the I Want Out solo. Now, these ARE good songs - don't get me wrong, they do NOT suck. And they all have their original moments as well (the strings part in Heaven Or Hell, the clean guitar opening in Dethrone Tyranny, etc). I enjoy them. However, while these similarities don't take away from some other listeners' experiences, they do take away from mine some, which is a shame, especially when you have a listen to Gamma Ray's previous work and think about how much better these songs could have been. Is my rating seeming a bit more logical yet? Let's move on. The remaining songs are a mixed bag. Fire Below has an awesome riff and beginning, but the somewhat odd lyrics and the bland chorus seem to bring things down a notch. Damn The Machine is an admirable attempt at getting a bit of riff-grind in the usual power/traditional metal mix and has good lyrics, but the experiment unfortunately sacrifices good melody (except for the chorus), which, if you're a Gamma Ray fan, you know, that experiment or not, that's not a good thing. And the two Henjo Richter penned songs (Follow Me, Lake Of Tears), to be blunt, suffer from bad songwriting, which is something that in my opinion doesn't belong on a Gamma Ray album to this extent. All the songs have their good points, there's always either good lyrics, or an awesome solo, and theres good lyrics in many of the songs. But these things compete with the opposing flaws much too much for my liking. Overall, this IS a good album, but for a Gamma Ray album, it just plain doesn't quite live up to the standard, and not in a very excusable way, either. Diehard fans are alright getting this with most of the aforementioned knowledge, new fans I wouldn't recommend No World Order as your first Gamma Ray album. No hard feelings against the band as it's hard writing your best stuff ALL the time. But this is a review, so the review has been given. Cheers
Buy this album on Amazon at $15.98
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