FREEDOM CALL – Land Of The Crimson Dawn

The German Power Metal band Freedom Call is back with their seventh studio album: Land Of The Crimson Dawn. Freedom Call was founded back in 1998 by vocalist and guitarist Chris Bay and original drummer Dan Zimmerman from Gamma Ray. Their early albums carried a very similar sound to other German Power Metal bands like Edguy and Blind Guardian. They have evolved somewhat over the years to develop a slightly more edgy and darker sound, while still remaining true to their roots. Unfortunately, Zimmerman was forced to leave the band in 2010 to keep up with his Gamma Ray commitments; however, Freedom Call still marches on and continues to make very formidable and underrated music.

Like all previous Freedom Call works, Chris Bay is the hero of the album. Although he does not have very distinct and overpowering vocals, he has a great ability to use the finite melodic tones of his voice to bring any type of emotion and drama into his songs. This is the sign a true natural talent for any lead singer. With this album, you start to hear Bay using darker undertones within some of the tracks, which actually gives the band more diversity to delve into styles that they had not done before.

One of the most noticeable things about Land Of The Crimson Dawn is its lack of thematic discipline. The album begins with an incredibly strong track “Age Of The Phoenix” — an inspiring and forceful song that becomes an instant classic. The album actually continues in a very solid direction for the first four tracks, even to the point of Bay singing some powerful, growling vocals during the song “66 Warriors.”

Much to the listener’s dismay, the album takes a sudden turn for the worse during the next few tracks, incorporating a more “Pop Metal” approach to their songs, which plummets at arguably the worst track on the album “Hero On Video.” This track is over-synthesized, ’80s-sounding melodic drivel. It has absolutely no merit at all, and has no place being on the album. What makes this song stand out so atrociously is Freedom Call’s choice of this song to be the first single from the album, and they even made a video for it.

There is some recovery for the later tracks on the album, especially with the very dark and intense “Killer Gear” and the epic-sounding “Eternity.” However as a whole, Freedom Call is all over the place with this album. There are so many drastic themes, it just doesn’t make for an easy listen from start to finish. It’s beneficial for a band to show elements of diversity within an album, but since Land Of The Crimson Dawn pushes both ends of the spectrum so much, musically it becomes confusing. There are many durable songs on this album, enough to make it stand out as an impressive piece of work, but it’s unfortunate the listener will have to skip a few tracks to get the best music.