Gamma Ray’s 2008 live album release
Hell Yeah!!!
Live In
Montreal appears to have been made with only one purpose in mind and that was to record live the band’s best cuts for the first time by a line-up that has been together now for 14 years. As it is, part one features some of the band’s all time anthems, including “The
Silence”, “Man On A Mission”, and “Gardens Of The
Sinner”. Of course, the greatest measure of a live album is in its recording/production.
Hell Yeah!!!
Live In
Montreal does not disappoint. The clarity is very high; all notes are easy to discern, especially during the guitar solos/duets. For a band as technically proficient as
Gamma Ray it has to be. Some songs even benefit a little more than their studio versions here, including “Fairytale” – this version here driven by acoustic guitar, and “
Blood Religion” with its off-speed middle section. The order of tracks on part one works well here, too. The cut from “
Dream Healer” to “
Heart Of A
Unicorn” is so perfect the latter feels like a second part to the former. “
Dream Healer” is perhaps the best song on part one. It not only benefits from its placing and production, but it also features the best contribution from hired keyboardist Eero Kaukomies. The most outstanding track goes to “Heavy
Metal Universe”. Even though it is this song that bookends the obligatory ‘come sing after me’ part of the show, there is a sense that band leader Kai Hansen knows how contrived and unoriginal that is, and thus employs his wonderful German sense of humor to get through it. It gets most comical when Hansen duets with himself ala voice and guitar. Its quite honest in the beginning but ends with him doing vocal renditions of rockets going off and exploding.
Two negatives: one is just an opinion, but it would be nice to hear a live version of the intro track “Welcome” rather than just the recorded tape.
Two, the lead guitars are so well mic’d up that they pull focus from what should be the center - the rhythm parts/sections. This tweaks the ears a bit when the harmonizing part takes over the melody in a given break. Some may consider this the beauty of live recording, but if one were to judge levels based on the studio versions, one would find this distracting. Still, the positives on part one are many, and
Gamma Ray’s
Hell Yeah!!!
Live In
Montreal is a great live tome by their best line up ever.
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