Gamma Ray - Power Plant (1999)

Busy old Kai Hansen appears again at the beginning of 1999 with Gamma Ray's sixth album, and it is arguably the band's best to date. After a bit of a slow start, there is plenty of pounding, speeding, melodious metal here, with some great guitar solos and exhilerating passages as they sing about some science fiction/end of the world kind of stuff.
In the middle of it all is, oddly, a cover of Pet Shop Boys' "It's A Sin", which seems quite out of place, but even more oddly, I find the original more powerful! And following that is a Hansen original, "Heavy Metal Universe" which, when I first heard it, thought it must be from some Manowar collection. But such songs as "Strangers In The Night" (showcasing drummer Dan Zimmermann's knack for writing melodies), "Gardens Of The Sinner", "Hand Of Fate" and the concluding "Armageddon" are excellent, and the record overall a very enjoyable listen.

****