Gamma Ray
Insanity & Genius

I shall allow myself to close the discography of Gamma Ray on Debaser by telling you about the follow-up to the strange Sigh No More: Insanity & Genius. Compared to the previous work, atypical for the sound proposed, here we are in the presence of a furious CD of pure old-school melodic power metal. Direct and captivating music that well expresses the sense of "energy-power" encapsulated in the flashy adjective POWER. Listening to the 11 tracks of the product in question, in fact, if you are a lover of hard & heavy music, you feel your blood boil in your veins, and you get an incredible urge to learn to play the guitar to try to follow the exhilarating riffs and solos that fill an unrestrained album that is not confined to predetermined patterns. The power of those years (we are in 1993), after the hangover of the Keeper albums, was still "under construction" in the sense that it was searching for the winning formula and the perfect mix between raw power and happy melodies.

What makes Insanity & Genius so unique? The breaks, without a doubt. Every song offers often devastating accelerations and tempo changes, which challenge drummer Thomas Nack and bassist Jan Rubach. And the solos, you might ask? Luckily, they are not just a sterile profusion of neoclassical scales (taking as a reference the Stratocaster of the Swedish blond Yngwie, including both his past masters and his future clones). The two guitarists are good musicians (not monsters) but they don't rely solely and exclusively on speed: they enjoy creating evolving solos, for a crudely heavy metal back and forth enriched by many riffs that get stuck in your head.

Ralph Scheepers' voice can go very high, but in this album, he also tries to be dirty, rough, and passionate in execution, enriching every song in this way (in Heal Me and Your Turn Is Over he is sidelined to make room for Hansen and Schlachter).

To this, we must add a superb backing vocals job that is unjustly underrated by most. The two guitarists are not perfect in terms of setup; rather, let's admit they are quite rough. This does not detract from the fact that they are absolutely up to par in embellishing the tracks with significant vocal interplays (am I blaspheming if I mention Queen?!) while playing the guitar, and to confirm this, I invite you to watch the 1993 DVD.

The songs use the stick and the carrot. The stick as in the initial Tribute To The Past or in the title track. The carrot as in the grand passionate slow 18 Years (amazing Scheepers) and in the concluding Brothers.

What I terribly like about Insanity & Genius is that you feel the band's desire to write original songs. Now, in the market, it is almost a must for a single to have the same easy melodic lines based on a catchy and affable riff, for the solo to last about 30-40 seconds, and for the chorus to be repeated n times. If the situation has been so schematic for some years now, in 1993 it wasn't, and Gamma Ray didn't care at all about the rules and rocked hard. This is the only way to explain memorable songs like The Cave Principle: a roller coaster of experimental heavy metal, powerful and listenable infinitely for its many facets and tempo changes. The same goes for Heal Me. For 2 minutes we are convinced we are facing a sumptuous slow. We're already ready to take out the lighter and...and instead no! Kai Hansen has the guts to overturn and destroy a massively potential ballad to turn towards a massive, dark, and heavy sound that gives birth to one of the most extraordinary breaks I have had the pleasure of hearing. A sweet, slow break that has nothing to do with the beginning of the song and that gives rise to a crescendo that holds the essence of power. This is music that breaks the norms, courageous that no band of the genre could now bring to light! I could go on with the technical and whirling Future Madhouse, which for 5 minutes presses down on the accelerator with super bass work and the two guitars that, in the end, it’s reasonable to expect to be smoking and falling to the ground: exhausted and without sparing a single note among the total 12 strings. I could bore you with a track-by-track that tries to highlight the technique of a simply superlative lineup, but I believe the essence of the speech is understood.

Hey, you who are reading! Do you really think power is just double pedal, stadium choruses, scale solos, and linear songs talking about dragons and princesses to save??? I challenge you, I tell you to listen to this album and you will see that afterward you will respect bands like the early Gamma Ray and understand why the tone of my review is so sad and defeatist when I look at the present...and imagine the future.

An amazing CD that I almost wore out by listening to it over and over.