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Magnus Karlsson's Free Fall: We Are The Night
Magnus Karlsson's Free Fall - We Are The Night Album Art

Magnus Karlsson's Free Fall: We Are The ...

Melodic/Symphonic Heavy/Power Metal
4.5/5.0

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Frontiers Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 10.06.2020 | Released: 12.06.2020

When he's not pursuing other gigs, like Primal Fear, The Ferrymen, Allen/Olzon, and many others, guitar wizard Magnus Karlsson finds time to attend to his pet project Free Fall. If you're not familiar with his Free Fall project, it mostly consists of Karlsson on guitars, bass, keyboards, and some vocals and Jaime Salazar on drums, with guest vocalists from the rock and metal community. For his third album We Are The Night, these vocal luminaries include Noora Louhimo (Battle Beast), Dino Jelusick (Animal Drive, Dirty Shirley), Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), and Tony Martin (ex-Black Sabbath), among others. A complete list with the songs follows this review.

Magnus Karlsson - Click For Larger Image

Magnus Karlsson

Musically speaking then, you also have a return to Karlsson's trademark sound: melodic and symphonic heavy power metal, and rather epic at that. Essentially, the song arrangements have a similar composition. Sometimes there's a soft start or something symphonic and grand, or perhaps a guitar solo. After this, everything turns into a song that's hard and heavy, dense and bombastic, with all things leading to a bristling and soaring Karlsson neo-classical guitar solo. The possible exceptions are the metal anthems Queen Of Fire with Noora Louhimo and Far From Over with Tony Martin. They're still rather immense.

But, here's the thing, Karlsson is an exceptional songwriter. He may have that solo in his head before he starts penning a tune, but he never neglects the importance of melody and harmony (especially in the vocal arrangements), and rhythm and groove, in any song. These elements are quite notable throughout, but especially present in such songs as Kingdom Falls, Dreams And Scars, or All The Way To The Stars. Of course, a Free Fall album would not be complete without a Karlsson instrumental wherein, essentially, he puts on a guitar clinic for aspiring axe slingers. Listen below.

Through it all, We Are Night is another powerful album of Magnus Karlsson's epic and bombastic melodic power metal, and boundless and creative guitar work. Easily recommended.

Songs and Vocalists: Hold Your Fire (Dino Jelusick) Kingdom Falls (Renan Zonta) We Are The Night (Magnus Karlsson) Queen Of Fire (Noora Louhimo) Dreams And Scars (Renan Zonta) All The Way To The Stars (Mike Andersson) One By One (Ronnie Romero) Under The Black Star (Dino Jelusick) Temples And Towers (Tony Martin) Don’t Walk Away (Magnus Karlsson) On My Way Back To Earth (Instrumental) Far From Over (Tony Martin)



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The Bottom Line

We Are Night is another powerful album of Magnus Karlsson's epic and bombastic melodic power metal, and boundless and creative guitar work. Easily recommended.

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