It all begins and ends with the sign of victory, at least when it comes to classic driven European Power Metal. Though I know that some of you might have become tiresome towards the same kind of cheerful & hopeful characterized features that these types of bands has been sharing for years, if you haven't known the German FREEDOM CALL or maybe you a fan of GAMMA RAY or old HELLOWEEN, trust me that you won't be sorry. Actually, FREEDOM CALL is well connected to GAMMA RAY since the latter's skin man, Dan Zimmerman, is the band's founder and up until two years ago, its drummer recently replaced by ex-PRIMAL FEAR hitman, Klaus Sperling.

Since I have known FREEDOM CALL, I have always recognized it as a sort of a sister or parallel band to GAMMA RAY, especially when the musical and sound production directions were involved. However, FREEDOM CALL was always more melodic, harmonic, less in its heaviness while exploring the worlds of opera and the theatre. Even so, the year 2012, from my end at least, came as different for the band. After travelling around the world of classic Power Metal under what seemed to me like a tight directive, FREEDOM CALL's new album, "Land Of The Crimson Dawn", via SPV / Steamhammer Records, sounded to some extent out of the ordinary, and believe me that this is a good thing.

For all you die hard Power Metal addicts, do know that FREEDOM CALL haven't decided to lose their distinctiveness just yet, however, through "Land Of The Crimson Dawn" they made a few steps in the directions of Hard Rock / Rock N' Roll / 80s AOR and groovy modern Metal music. I think that "Sun In The Dark" is their prime achievement and the best presentation of their modified face. It's heavier than usual, obscure at several points but with the same melodic foundations that made them so great. "Killer Gear", is another one of their attempts of multiplicity, sounded to me as an harsh & aggressive form of track in the veins of modern Thrash mixed with Power Metal. It is a good song but not one of my top choices. Furthermore, tracks like "Hero on Video" and "Rockin' Radio", the AOR / Hard Rock representatives were rather scrawny with a large amount of cheese.

"Land Of The Crimson Dawn", along with its other challenging endeavours of becoming an assorted that didn't create much impression on me, made an impact on me actually in the basic form of FREEDOM CALL. Outstanding traditional Power Metal melodic and catchy killing machine gunners as "Age of the Phoenix", "Terra Liberty", "Back Into the Land of Light" and what sounded to me as a self loving or motivational song of "Rockstars", that nearly chopped my head off, to me were what exactly is FREEDOM CALL. Though I appreciate their yearning to be liberated on the composing end, they are best what on they do when sticking to their original practice.