Fantasmagoria

Leprous are an exciting young band from Norway. They made a great album for our label in Tall Poppy Syndrome and have now found a new home at Inside Out. Bilateral is the band's third album. It continues their tradition of mixing progressive rock and metal in equal doses. They serve it up in a way that continually leaves the listener off kilter. This time Einar Solberg sings almost (but not totally) with clean vocals. There is still quite a bit of heaviness. The music constantly challenges you and at times isn't all that pleasant to listen to...but you can't stop. If Van Der Graaf Generator recorded a metal album it might sound something like this. Album of the year candidate...you must own this!

"True in the name of fantasy, true in the name of what is Metal and the heavenly meaning of life of enjoyment and partying, looking for the right thrill. It is above and beyond being mere serious about things, it is about letting yourself out, free as bird, or an eagle in the sky looking for chances, for its next prey. Keeping it steady as they go, not abiding by any other contemporary trend, there is the German FREEDOM CALL, a veteran band led by Chris Bay, no short or far in their musical range than late 80’s / early 90’s HELLOWEEN along with a hefty dosage of mid to late 90’s GAMMA RAY, retaining it Teutonic, massively melodic and bombastically memorable as it can be. Following a tight stature, FREEDOM CALL is about to release their eighth album, “Beyond”, via SPV / Steamhammer Records. Though easily a reminiscent of everything that is considered German Metal, minus ACCEPT, or melodically within the German Metal scene, this album strongly positioned FREEDOM CALL as a free spirit, implementing flowing and smooth songativity, a measure of cheerfulness, plenty of imagination but with a distinct upfront Power Metal prowess.Fortunately, I had the chance to write about the band’s previous, “Land Of The Crimson Dawn”, and also the “Legend Of The Shadowking” album, and it helped me to keep a certain perspective with “Beyond”. Scouring and molesting this album for countless of times, it made me realize how glued I was to the songs. It is fairly true that FREEDOM CALL are the last band to be recognized as genuine, especially with the adjacent proximity to GAMMA RAY (Sometimes even Chris Bay sounds like Kai Hansen) and at times one would notice how their melodic guitaring, meaning the leads and licks aren’t that varied and being represented as clichés under equally similar templates in different versions. However, in an awkward kind of way, this foursome crew has the ability to keep certain elements as their own, for example their commendable lust for life that inspired positivity within their tunes, adhering party like tracks of Traditional Metal, leaving Hard Rock and emotive AOR behind, while flaring the Boogie with heaviness and class. In overall, “Beyond” felt less dark, needless to say sinister, than its previous contenders. On the contrary, it is much more welcoming, haunting, harmonic, fluent songwriting that somewhat focused on the traditional structure of 80’s oriented songs along with emphasizing the choruses that are the bread and butter for any sing along. Instrumentally, I noticed raging rhythm guitar heavy riffery and brick wall rhythm section searing speed junkets by the book, while pampering all the merits that preserved German Metal’s influence. Also several tuned thundered with wonderful soloing and of course, hard to pass it by, tremendous vocal performance under an extraordinary vocal production, nothing shorter than a semi operatic conclusion.Thus, while virtually crossing the hour mark, “Beyond” felt as if it was much shorter in length, it passed me by so rapidly that I just had to push the play button once again to let the material sweep me for another outing. “Heart Of A Warrior” is yet another war hero track, a hymn that is one of the many that signaled me why Metal music is the best thing that ever happened to, a classic Power Metal emblem that had me thinking of early HAMMERFALL, specifically due to its emphatic chorus. “Paladin” and “Follow Your Heart”, a chain of two hits, one by one they barraged my essence with memorable sheer moments of heavenly glory, musically nothing really changed, captivating melodic turmoil, sparkling with a few heavier passages, yet I was more obsessed by production of the vocals, typically on these two, multi channeled fury highlighting an imposing spiritual release, riding into the night under the wings of a dragon. “Beyond”, could be mistaken as the album’s epic, yet though its length, it is nothing of a sort from my end. This song’s character is the precise formula and means for the creation of an ultimate Power Metal track tracking over seven minutes. Infusing GAMMA RAYish harmonic main lead guitar riff, bombastically treading near operatic proportions and combining them with both slow to fast tempo drum ignitions, you may have yourself a winner, an ultimate song that will carry you with it for just enough time for you to grasp it straightforwardly.FREEDOM CALL, in their own special way, might be disjointed a bit from what is happening around them, as our existence became harsher over the years, however, they remained true to their previous forms, snubbed Hard Rock a bit in favor of hard to the bone Metal, reoccurring themselves occasionally but in this here release formed a heartwarming demonstration of notable songwriting that would cause you to bite the bullet time and time again." - Metal Temple