Stairway to Fairyland

Stairway to Fairyland is the debut on which FREEDOM CALL built positive power metal using soaring vocal melodies, lightly running rhythm and glittering keyboards. The songs are fantastical, but the plain strength of the choruses is the core. It is an anticipated debut, formed centered on Gamma Ray drummer Daniel Zimmermann and vocalist Chris Bay. On “Over the Rainbow,” “Fairyland” and “Shine On,” a sound that chose elation over heaviness makes the whole album bright. Songs like “We Are One,” “Holy Knight” and “Another Day” breathe the band’s clear appeal too. It is a record on the royal road of German melodic metal, inheriting the lineage of Helloween and Gamma Ray. Lifting the listener’s mood pleasantly, it is a debut attractive even as an entrance to the genre.