Band:	Gamma Ray
Album:	Heading For Tomorrow
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	February 26, 1990
Guest review by:	Spyroid

Disc I
01. Welcome
02. Lust For Life
03. Heaven Can Wait
04. Space Eater
05. Money
06. The Silence
07. Hold Your Ground
08. Free Time
09. Heading For Tomorrow
10. Look At Yourself [Uriah Heep cover]
11. Mr. Outlaw [Japanese / 2002 digipack bonus]
12. Lonesome Stranger [2002 digipack bonus]
13. Sail On [2002 digipack bonus]

Disc II [extended anniversary edition bonus]
01. Who Do You Think You Are?
02. Heaven Can Wait [EP version]
03. Money [demo]
04. Sail On [demo]
05. Heading For Tomorrow [live]
06. Space Eater [live]
07. The Silence [demo]
08. Mr. Outlaw [instrumental version]
09. Heaven Can Wait [demo]
10. Heading For Tomorrow [karaoke version]
11. Space Eater [karaoke version]
12. Lonesome Stranger [demo]

Heading for Tomorrow - The real Keeper of the Seven Keys Part III

As we all know Kai Hansen left Helloween after the Keeper II because of different reasons. One of them was that the other members wanted to play music with less metal influences, which resulted in Pink Bubbles and Chameleon. Kai wanted to keep on with the metal, and therefore left Helloween to found his own band.

My opinion has always been that this is the real follow up to the Keeper albums, it is not way too close but it's much more the same style than Helloween's "The Legacy" which is much more modern while this album from 1990 still has the 80's touch. Especially with Ralf Scheepers on vocals, he really sounds like Rob Halford. The mixture of songs is really good, the intro and the first song is very epic, and very, very power metal. Heaven Can Wait is a typical single that could have been on the Keeper II (though the chorus reminds me a bit to much of the Iron Maiden song with the same name). Space Eater, Free Time and Money are all a bit funny in their approaches, but Money is the only one wich is really good, especially because Kai is singing as well, and he sound really Walls of Jericho. The lyrics are also great, and all this makes this song of my favourites of the album. Hold your Ground is a more anonymous and usual but very good song and The Silence is a marvelous epic ballad wich doesn't sound much like a metal ballad. The album ends with the epic and also marvelous title track, which contains many acoustic parts, and would probably be the progressive track of the album. The bonus track is a great cover of Uriah Heep's Look at Yourself.

Gamma Ray is a band that has evolved their sound a lot, it's more and more modern for every album and still every album has exactly the same touch. This probably has to do a lot with many lineup changes, for example when Ralf Scheepers left after Insanity and Genious. Therefore, some people maybe would consider this to be one of their worst albums, and so do I but since it's is Gamma Ray and Gamma Ray always sound more or less the same (and because it is still good), I'll give it 8.

Highlights: since the songs are very different, all songs except Space Eater and Free Time is worth a lot of credits.