Take for instance a few individuals bent on making you feel uncomfortable with their horrid instrumentation and disturbing positivity: Freedom Call. When not skipping through flower fields, these Germans show off sub-par studio recordings filled with fluff, yet nothing can match the redundancy of Freedom Call’s fifth bowel movement entitled Dimensions. Sure you could say they’ve done a few good things before, but this here is simply unforgivable. When entering the world of Dimensions, I see nothing more than a group of tools shoving a pop-influenced agenda while chipping away at patience’s threshold until it lies in pieces.

Power metal focusing on poppy vocals adjacent to strong keyboards is often labeled flower metal because of its lacking force and all-consuming puffiness, and that’s exactly what Freedom Call aimed for here. Throughout every moment of this disc, Christian Bay’s overly-bombastic singing devours nearly all audio space while a series of riffs, bass lines, and percussion patterns lightly drive at a changeless pace until the number on your CD player rolls over. But when that happens, Freedom Call backtracks right into a one-way street of rehashed power metal driven by Bay’s deafening voice and light keyboards. Power metal can have a few fairly generic qualities, yet these guys have gone about to make a pop-influenced disaster more predictable than a hooker’s STD checkup. It’s rather confusing how inconsistency is so common, because we’re offered a total shredding apparatus entitled “United Alliance” right after the album’s first two songs, and it’s actually a very decent track overall; sadly, that’s where interest begins to expire. Freedom Call’s remaining chorus-based thumps are like White Castle cheeseburgers: feeble, cheap, and a major acquaintance with indigestion.

When discussing annoyance, one must understand Dimensions is the pinnacle of such an issue as it pumps displeasure like a heart does blood. Firstly, the production places Bay’s terrible vocals at rocketing volumes over other musical qualities dramatically, which results in him yelling in scratchy tones and heckling pitches. Alas, chorus repetition also grinds down tolerance with its highly-predictable nature alongside many degrading issues such as useless backing effects; it’s just too annoying for anyone to withstand. Now add in other unneeded crap like a children choir and you have a suicide aid that’s been proven effective by countless power metal fans looking for good music, but found insanity instead.