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After their very good retrospective double CD Blast From The Past released in 2000, Gamma Ray are back with another full studio album, No World Order! The album features 10 songs plus an intro and lasts more than 50 minutes. The cover art of the booklet is outstanding with great colors and details. Lyrics are based on the idea of a global conspiracy by powerful secret societies.

No World Order is in the same veins that the previous Gamma Ray album, Power Plant. The album contains many fast tracks like the opener Dethrone Tyranny, The Heart Of The Unicorn and Solid. Damn The Machine is a great heavy track which contains a solid heavy intro and outro and has a memorable chorus, probably my favorite song off the album. Other great songs are Eagle, Heaven Or Hell and New World Order. The album ends with Eagle, a good slow song.

The production is excellent, especially the guitar tone which is terrific, one my favorite one (if not the one) for a power metal band. The lead guitars are still excellent and very melodic. Kai Hanson does a great job on the vocals. For example, the intro Induction is remarkable. This is one thing that Kai had improved a lot since the beginnings of Gamma Ray.

One thing that I noticed and annoyed me is that many part of songs are similar to previously heard riffs, especially in the Judas Priest discography. For instance, verses of Solid are almost a cut and paste of Rapid Fire by Judas Priest from the album British Steel. Also, on Eagle, there is an Iron Maiden rip-off near the end (3:50 to 4:39). That's the weak point of the album. Don't get me wrong, I love the CD and I really enjoy listening to it but I think that after several albums, Gamma Ray should still release some fresh and fantastic albums like Land Of The Free and Somewhere Out In Space.

Overall, Gamma Ray plays it very safe with No World Order, a very good album with only a negative point, some déjà vu riffs.