One day there was a man who with some other musicians started the recordings of their first album and the birth of a whole style in metal. Kai Hansen with
Helloween created three albums diamonds and he is the responsible musician for power metal.
Walls Of Jericho was born from zero and the two Keepers led
Helloween to the top, but some time Kai felt that he was not satisfied and so he left them. Leaving no time passing by he decided to creat another band called
Gamma Ray and again from zero he recorded with them their first full - length
Heading for Tomorrow with
Ralf Scheepers on vocals.
When you creat another band whose style is power metal while you have already done this with your first band, what different thing can you offer? Although this album has both similarities and differences from the first three
Helloween albums, actually Kai in here was more free, he had all the time to express his ideas without being under pressure from the demands of the band's label. "Welcome" is the intro known from the similar intros in Keepers that welcomes us pleasantly in this new project and suddenly the riff of "
Lust for Life" makes our ears be wide open. Speed, power, melody, three ingredients necessary for a successful formula and of course the high vocals of a man who was one step before being the next singer of
Judas Priest after the leaving of Rob
Halford.
The general atmosphere of the album is more happy than anyone could expect and this is the difference from the Keepers, no clues of darkness, no clues of magic, just power and happy melody through "
Space Eater", "
Money" and "Freetime" a song with an unforgettable and addictive riff and a chorus too. If you wake up with a smile on your face then this song is the right one to begin your day. The ballad "The silence" is a proof that
Gamma Ray really love the music of Queen and they have always searched for a chance to embed it in their songs. Here Ralf sounds so gentle than any other moment in the album or in the rest Rays albums.
Kai in the debut of
Helloween wrote a song with a big last, he did the same in Keepers and so he could not leave this album without a long song. "
Heading for Tomorrow" follows the funcionality of "
Halloween" and "Keeper of the seven keys", but it is more based on "
Victim of changes" from
Judas Priest, all its alternations and the serenity before the guitar eruption at the end of it make it simply special.
Many fans regard
Land of the Free as the best
Gamma Ray album and I do not disagree with them, but if it was not
Heading for Tomorrow may
Land of the Free would not sound so perfect. I also have a secret belief that when Kai is just playing all the guitar parts and someone else is on vocals then the album sounds more fresh and powerful, ok
Land of the Free is just the exception on this.
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