Magnus Karlsson's Freefall - 'We Are The Night'

This album gets off to a flying start with ‘Hold Your Fire’. An epic and dramatic Hans Zimmer-esque intro builds tension before the vocals kick in after a minute or so. One of the first lines Dino Jelusick sings is ‘Can I have your attention please?’ Well, hell yes. I’ve not heard him sing before but he slams home a breathtaking performance, ripping and roaring through this powerful metal song like a man possessed.

This is the third of Magnus Karlsson’s Freefall albums. He seems to be having a prolific run at the moment as he’s already delivered the excellent Allen / Olzon this year and the next Primal Fear album is due out in July. He’s written and produced this and, as well as his usual quality guitar shredding, he also plays all the other instruments too (other than drums which are performed splendidly by Anders Kollerfors). MK even delivers decent vocals on two tracks but, apart from one instrumental, the other tracks are all sung by six guest vocalists.

Noora Louhimo is the only lady on the record but what a performance she delivers on ‘Queen of Fire’. The song presents a classic love & revenge story within a massive cinematic soft-rock anthem. It starts like an 80s Heart song before Noora unleashes the rage and rips a cheating lover a new one. If they had toned this one down you could imaging Adele singing it as a Bond theme but with one of metal’s finest female voices delivering the power it becomes a solid rock masterpiece. Incidentally, Noora’s band Battle Beast are broadcasting a full band show from a theatre in Finland on Saturday 27 June which you can buy ‘tickets’ for via their Facebook page.

Frontiers have brought some very talented South American performers to European attention recently and there are two fine examples here. Chilean, Ronnie Romero has become almost ubiquitous through his work with Rainbow, Lords of Black, Coreleoni and now Vandenberg. He has already worked with MK in The Ferrymen and he appears here on one song; the misty-eyed but muscular ‘One by One’.

Less well known at the moment is Renan Zonta but that must surely change. He announces himself boldly on ‘Kingdom Falls’ with a bravura performance on one of the album’s standout tracks. Renan made his name performing rock numbers on ‘The Voice Brazil’ and has a strong visual presence to back up his obvious vocal talent. There is a fine video on You Tube for his second track ‘Dreams and Scars’ if you need proof. It is a powerfully melodic song and Renan soars on the massively catchy chorus, augmented by some beautifully tasteful and restrained guitar soloing by MK – this is the one you won’t be able to get out of your head for days. Renan’s band ‘Electric Mob’ also had an album released on Frontiers in June. It’s more of a 70s style bluesy rock stomp but well worth checking out.

Croatian, Jelusick also has a second track ‘Under the Black Star’. Before he added the ‘k’, Dino Jelusic was something of a child prodigy and even won Junior Eurovision in 2003 apparently. He has started to make a name for himself as a featured singer on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra shows, in his own band Animal Drive and with George Lynch in the Dirty Shirley project, but I think he has found the perfect vehicle for his talent with MK’s symphonic power metal songs.

‘All The Way To The Stars’ is an interesting one – blending orchestral with a hint of techno and MK layering on the guitars. Cloudscape’s Mike Andersson is on vocals for this and does a fine job.

Tony Martin comes with a pedigree from his time fronting Black Sabbath. His contribution includes co-writing credits on the two songs he performs and ‘Temples and Towers’ in particular has a Sabbathy / Dio feel about it.

This really is a quality release, particularly the first five songs which are phenomenal. For some, it might be one of these pick ‘n’ mix albums where you check it out and then pick the tunes from the singers that suit your particular taste but it’s definitely worth a proper listen and you might end up doing a deep-dive into some of the singers’ back catalogues.