The gang choruses of the two early songs, "Lust For Life" and "Heaven Can Wait", help make them excellent, catchy starters, and while quality varies a bit afterwards, with the likes of "Money" being a curio, but still pretty good, and "Free Time", with it's I-don't-want-to-have-to-work-at-all-I-want-to-party-all-the-time message being absolutely lame, but still oddly likeable, but things finish well with the 14+ minute title song and a cover of Uriah Heep's "Look At Yourself", which conclude what is quite an exhilarating listen.
Vocalist Ralph Scheepers is pretty good, sounding quite a bit like Bruce Dickenson, though a bit wobbly for my tastes, while Hansen himself rips into his guitar with gusto.
Look, I admit I feel a bit pretentious commenting on guitar work/solos. I couldn't play one to save myself, and screaming, whining solos often just pass me by, while others listen to them in awe. I suppose this makes my whole blog pretentious. :) Heavy metal and don't really care for guitar solos?? I didn't say that, but it just seems to take a lot to really grab me as far as they are concerned.
In any event, I already find Gamma Ray preferable to what Helloween had already released by the end of the eighties with this very enjoyable album.
****
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