Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: June 12, 2020
Production: Jacob Hansen
Album length: 58.19 min
Genre: Melodic Rock / Power Metal
Rating: 9.5/10
Who doesn’t know Magnus Karlsson? He’s one of the most accomplished and talented musicians around, and very likely one of the most notorious studio legionnaires too. Want your own studio record but have no clue how to get it? Easy. Order it from Magnus. He’ll write the songs and the arrangements to your wishes, handle the production, and play everything in the package himself. No problem. What’s even more interesting is that, for all his involvement in several projects at once, the guy never, ever runs out of creative dynamite — the same Magnus can put his name as a writer on several studio records a year. This year alone he got everything ready for the Allen/Olzon album. It’s not long since the new The Ferrymen album came out, and in July the new Primal Fear is on its way. I hope I haven’t left anything out.
If you’re a fan of all or most of the music this Swedish musician has made in his career to date, then Free Fall will fit you like a glove. Given his vast body of work, it carries a traceable common thread, since it comes from the hands of one and the same creative genius. Overall you could call it the perfect yield of ultra-musical catchiness that ignites instantly! That common thread ties together Starbreaker, Bob Catley’s (Magnum) solo album, and the Kiske/Somerville project, to name just a few. And Karlsson’s songwriting influence is clearly audible on every Primal Fear album too.
That’s exactly what’s most fascinating. The fact that every single release this man stands behind maintains incredible credibility and high quality. Because he’s recorded, to put it mildly, a ton of them. This time you have to keep in mind that Free Fall is a project where Magnus has no strings attached and creates the music he enjoys most. The ideas are fantastic once again. Considering the guy works within a songwriting template that doesn’t bring a musical revolution but demands a great deal of filigree recycling to catch fire again in a new outfit, Magnus carries out this mission with feather-light ease. Not only is he far too experienced, but, as said, creative freshness never leaves him. On Free Fall the songs “slalom” between three genres: melodic rock, heavy/power metal and hard rock. In the signature production by renowned Danish sound engineer Jacob Hansen, the keyboards are once again arranged to contrast the moods and deepen the drama theater, while an exceptional bombast factor builds up that grabs you from the first second. Instantly! The guitar phrases revel over everything. Magnus has once again decorated the intros with some bravura guitar flourishes, while the mid-eight passages are brilliantly stocked and boast a top-notch cannonade of solo spots in magical colors. As a classically trained musician, he naturally dressed up some spots with orchestral arranging tricks too. And so that the thing wouldn’t come out generic, Magnus pulled one more trick. A very important trick, not a new one, but one that always brings a winning poker of aces. He called in a bunch of guests for the album. Vocalists who are, of course, technically incredibly polished and refined. They add their vocal character at various points, and as a result every single song gets its own recognizable aura. The record also features the instrumental On May Way Back to the Earth, which feels progressive metal, as the phrasing rests on a broken rhythmic texture. A phenomenal instrumental hinting that Karlsson could one day record a fully instrumental solo album.
On two tracks Karlsson also tries his hand as lead singer and does a decent job. He certainly can’t compete with the established names among the guest “vocal monsters”, but still. He delivers more than a respectable vocal, in which you do feel the one point of “vulnerability” of this otherwise excellent release. The compositions are all of equal quality. One of the album’s peaks is the opening Hold Your Fire, with a catchy chorus, featuring vocals by Dino Jelusick (Animal Drive, Trans-Siberian Orchestra). No less interesting is the other track with Dino on vocals. That’s the especially dramatic and tense Under the Black Star. Jelusick is a phenomenon. Much like Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), who delivers the vocal in One By One, Jelusick has his own vocal blend of the forceful destructiveness of Dio and Coverdale. Speaking of Dio, there’s the legendary Tony Martin, who lends his voice to Temples And Towers, fleetingly pulling the song toward the vibe of the “Tyr” era of (late) Black Sabbath. Noora Louhimo’s (Battle Beast) guest spot in Queen of Fire is also a fascination of its own kind that stands out on the album. In the closing Far From Over we meet Tony Martin again, and the memory of the late-eighties version of Black Sabbath comes alive in an even slightly more theatrical way. And Brazilian Renan Zonta (Electric Mob) counts as a true vocal discovery!
There’s really not much left to add. “We Are the Night” is a fascinating, let’s just call it melodic metal, release that once again bursts with a top-shelf dose of predatory pomp rhetoric, thanks to a new manifesto of big conceptual punch from Magnus Karlsson. Anyone who knows the previous Free Fall releases and is generally a fan of this musician’s songwriting style won’t spend much time wondering whether this one is worth checking out. Not a single track on it is a time thief. A new perfection of bombastic musical predatory instinct and top-notch classic punchiness, delivered by the magic of metal, in the hands of Karlsson’s inexhaustible creativity.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Hold Your Fire
2. Kingdom Falls
3. We Are The Night
4. Queen Of Fire
5. Dreams And Scars
6. All The Way To The Stars
7. One By One
8. Under The Black Star
9. Temples And Towers
10. Don’t Walk Away
11. On My Way Back To Earth (instrumental)
12. Far From Over
Line-up:
Magnus Karlsson – guitar, vocals on tracks 3 and 10, keyboards, bass
Anders Kollerfors – drums
Guest vocalists:
Dino Jelusick – vocals on tracks 1 and 8
Renan Zonta – vocals on tracks 2 and 5
Noora Louhimo – vocals on track 4
Mike Andersson – vocals on track 6
Ronnie Romero – vocals on track 7
Tony Martin – vocals on tracks 9 and 12
