Freedom Call - Ages Of Light 1998-2013 |
Published April 18 2013
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| Genre | Power Metal |
Chris Bay
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Vocals
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| Tracks | 24 |
Chris Bay
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Guitar
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| Running time | 103 Min. |
Lars Rettkowitz
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Guitar
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| Label | Steamhammer/SPV |
Ilker Ersin
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Bass
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| Release | 29 April 2013 |
Ramy Ali
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Drums
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| Country | Germany |
Chris Bay
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Keyboard
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| Producer | Stephan Ernst, Chris Bay | ||
| Similar artists | --- | ||
Musicians: CD 1: Chris Bay (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Lars Rettkowitz, Sascha Gerstner, Cede Dupont (guitars), Ilker Ersin, Samy Saemann, Armin Donderer (bass), Klaus Sperling, Daniel Zimmermann (drums), Nils Neumann (Keyboards). CD 2: Chris Bay (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Lars Rettkowitz (guitars, keyboards), Ilker Ersin, Samy Saemann (bass), Ramy Ali, Klaus Sperling, Daniel Zimmermann (drums), Cede Dupont (solo guitar). CD 1 produced by: Chris Bay, Daniel Zimmermann, Charlie Bauerfeind, Stephan Ernst and Tommy Newton. CD 2 produced by Stephan Ernst and Chris Bay.
To celebrate fifteen years of existence, German happy metallers Freedom Call, release a two disc compilation album with songs spanning all over their career on disc one and new recorded versions, not to be taken too serious, of a few chosen ones on disc two, subtitled Masqueraded and recorded with former members still friends to Mr. Bay and the band. With bandmembers frequently in and out of this band, leaving Chris Bay as sole consistent member, I don't know if this band will ever find that momentum they had on the first few releases.
Is this the best they've got? No way in hell is my immediate answer. Many of the songs are naturally on the top shelf, yet it would have been pretty boring to include almost the entire Eternity album on this release to make it state of the art. They have instead chosen what they believe are the best songs from each album, I reckon. It's however a good overview to see this band's progress through fifteen years, from classic power metal to happy metal.
The six songs on Masqueraded are really not that great. Most are them are rather goofy and freaky, created just to see how they sound like re-arranged and with different approaches. I can't help to smile when I here these versions and the more I listen to them, the more ridiculous they seem. It's good fun though to hear these metal songs with a lighter appearance and production turn into just about anything. If I have to choose one track, I think Age Of The Phoenix turned out the best.
Then how to rate an album like this, when I know that the bonus disc isn't serious at all and I know all the songs on disc one real well? The first disc contains loads of great songs and the second one does not, so I'll go for a good release, equaling 6 chalices. Additionally, the band encourage people to record their own versions of their favorite Freedom Call songs and upload them on YouTube and send the links to their facebook site.
See
also review of: Master
Of Light , Beyond
, Land
Of The Crimson Dawn , Legend
Of The Shadowking , The
Circle Of Life , Eternity
, Crystal Empire
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Performance
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Originality
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Production
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Vocals
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Songwriting
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6 |
8 |
6 |
7 |
6 |
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Summary
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6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe |
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