1130. Gamma Ray / Sigh No More. 1991. 5/5

It would be impossible to convey just how blown away I was when I discovered Helloween back in 1987, and how brilliant I believe those first four albums are. It is also hard to express how much I came to love Kai Hansen as an artist because of it, and then how difficult it was to take when he left the band in 1989. Fear not though! As he went on to form his own new group called Gamma Ray, and the band released their debut album the following year, the quite brilliant Heading for Tomorrow, an album that mixed together everything that had made Helloween as brilliant they had been with a new set of members. Lead vocalist Ralf Scheepers had provided the voice, and an inspired friendship that proved to be. Uwe Wessel on bass and Mathis Burchardt on drums had completed the recording band, while for the tour that followed Dirk Schlachter came on board as second guitarist.After a successful first tour, the band came together to write and record the follow up, soon to be known as Sigh No More. Burchardt had moved on at this point, and in his place came a young drummer by the name of Uli Kusch, a quite brilliant instrumentalist who eventually went on to a storied career in Kai’s former band Helloween. Also for Sigh No More, Dirk joined the band as a permanent member, slotting in as second guitarist.

As excellent as the first album had been, it had been almost a solo effort, as Kai had written all but one of the songs by himself. Here on Sigh No More however, the writing was shared by all members of the band apart from Uli, which given the songs he went on to write for Helloween and Masterplan, it is quite amazing that he didn’t get a chance to offer some material here. Not that the final product needed any more brilliant material than it eventually held. Kai wrote the music for 8 of the 10 tracks, four of those in collaboration with Uwe Wessel, With Uwe going solo on the track “Start Running” and Dirk doing likewise on “Father and Son”. The lyrics were shared by all four on different tracks with Ralf contributing on four tracks with Kai. The result is this did become a real band effort rather than just one individual contributing all of the material, and in many ways you can hear that closeness and collaborative factor in the songs that make up this terrific album.

On Gamma Ray’s first album Heading for Tomorrow what was most noticeable was the positiveness of the songs and lyrics, and the way that Kai’s ‘happy guitar’ that punctuated Helloween songs was prevalent again. Songs such as “Lust for Life”, “Heaven Can Wait”, “Free Time” and “Heading for Tomorrow” all showed a positive outlook on life and sounded upbeat both due to the lyrics and music.
There has been a noticeable progression in both musical style and lyrical outlook here on Sigh No More, not to the point of morbidity but the subject matter is much more serious and worldly that the debut album. It is something that Kai purposely pushed the writing towards. He felt that the first album had had too many elements similar to Helloween, and with the coming tsunami of grunge he felt that the next Gamma Ray album had to be more ‘grown up’.
Top of the list for subject matter is war, something that had taken up the news cycle again in 1991 with the onset of the Gulf War. None of the songs here correlate directly to that or any other conflict, but the war images are there, and while the songs are great the message is somewhat bleak. The songs “As Time Goes By”, “We Won’t Stop the War” and “Start Running” in particular discuss those issues. It is interesting that all of those three songs have four different people writing the lyrics, so it was obviously a subject that was close to the heart of all of the band rather than just one member.
Dirk’s “Father and Son” is a heartfelt tome to his relationship with his own father over his own dreams to make it in the music business, with the lines “You wanted the best for me, somehow things went wrong, and I tore us apart.” best describing that it didn’t end well, and “Rich and Famous” is the closest any songs on this album come to replicating those on the first album, with a tongue-in-cheek discussion about the way some choose fame and fortune over love and happiness.

Then there are the songs which are deep and reflective – lyrically rather than musically – and looking at the world in a different way. The opening track “Changes” is about the challenges of mental health from the writer’s perspective, with the lines “Hard to enjoy the good times, decay is what I feel, God, it's making me porous, vanish in haze, I wonder - wonder if I'm real.” giving a good indication of the way the song describes the mental state. “One With the World” tries to turn around those feelings and project a positive outlook on working through problems and coming up with a positive frame of mind at the end. “Countdown” is Kai’s song about the pressure of trying to get the album finished, and what may not be surprising is that it wouldn’t be his last song about running late for record companies! The final two songs of the album are more uplifting, with “Dream Healer” all about getting the best out of your dreams, and “The Spirit” another positive spin song lyrically on hoping for the best for the world going forward.

Everything here is top shelf. Ralf’s vocals are perfect throughout, with the right amount of emotion and power in the singing depending on the mood. I don’t think his vocals ever sounded better than they do on this album. Uli Kusch’s drumming is brilliant, and though he left to join Helloween after this album and was terrific in the time he was there, it was a shame he left the band. Uwe Wessel on bass again does a great job, but it was also his time to move on after this, apparently from a disagreement that he an Uli both had with the other members of the band. Dirk is great on guitar, despite it being only his second instrumental love, while Kai again tops the charts both in song writing and on lead guitar, leading the way in every way possible.

I’m not going to lie to you – whenever I review a Gamma Ray album over the next few months or years for this podcast, you are going to hear me rave about it. Because out of their whole catalogue, there is only one album I think might be a little bit dodgy. And it isn’t this one.
I was hooked from the very first. I love every song on this album, from the opening of “Changes” and “Rich and Famous”, through “One With the World” and to the conclusion of “Dream Healer” and “The Spirit”. When I got this album I was reading Stephen King’s “Four Past Midnight” collection, and in particular the first novella “The Langoliers”. And now, I can’t listen to this album without thinking about that book. Somehow, the songs perfectly fit the story as it plays out, and for me the two are now entwined forever.

Whatever YOU might feel about German heavy metal, as far as I am concerned this album is absolutely killer. This is the style of music I love the best, the duelling harmony guitars, the double kick drums at speed, the blazing bass guitar, and the vocals that can hit the heights. And Kai Hansen and his band of warriors are at the top of that tree. Apart from Ronnie James Dio, no one has had a greater influence on my love of music than Kai Hansen, and the Godfather delivers here in spades. You may not feel the same way about this album or band – and that’s fine. But for me, I could listen to nothing but Gamma Ray for the rest of my days and die a happy man. And this album is right up there with their greatest.

1129. Ozzy Osbourne / No More Tears. 1991. 5/5

Through the 1980’s Ozzy Osbourne had taken all before him, forging out a career apart from Black Sabbath that eventually outstripped his former band in both popularity and album sales during that decade, thanks to some fortuitous meetings with musicians such as Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee and Bob Daisley. Though there were obvious behind the scenes things that went on that were not as wonderful, including a consistent attempt to not give those who helped compose the songs that made him famous the credit they deserved before casting them aside, along with his own alcohol and drug problems, Ozzy marched through the decade of the 1980’s as a hero to the kids and with a string of brilliant albums.

For his previous album No Rest for the Wicked Ozzy had procured a brash young brilliant guitarist named Zakk Wylde, whose signature wailing created the kind of sound that he wanted to continue moving forward and improving the material that was being produced.

When it came to writing and recording this album, No More Tears, there was still plenty happening inside and outside the band. Not for the first time, but in essence probably the last time, Bob Daisley was the musician who was required when it came to putting it all together. The history between Ozzy and Bob is better left to other sources, and the story is both euphoric and inherently sad, but Daisley was brought in again to help with the recording of the album and to find the heart within the songs that were written. Alongside Randy Castillo on drums, these four recorded an album that for its time was just amazing. The 1980’s had been drained away, and in its place was a polished and mature album for the new decade, one that not only sounded like the most well-rounded album Ozzy had ever put his name to, but one which looked like it could push the foursome to even greater heights than they had ever known.

No More Tears takes some interesting paths, ones that wind off onto different parts of the forest of musical styles that the band has drawn from. Opening with “Mr Tinkertrain”, it’s a subject that lyrically at least makes you wonder if this song could be written in this day and age. You get the feeling that the ‘cancel culture’ of today’s protesters may see it as ‘inappropriate’. Despite this it is a great opening to the album, one where all four musicians come at you from the outset.
Lemmy Kilmister has writing credits on four of the songs of the album, and they are a diverse set of tracks. The second song “I Don’t Want to Change the World” is the first with Lemmy’s input, with a rocking track and thoughtful vocals over the top. Lemmy’s influence in the lyrics to both “Hellraiser” and “Desire” especially seem obvious. As it turn out his band Motorhead eventually did their own versions of both these songs, with “Hellraiser” not only appearing on Motorhead’s March ör Die album in 1992 but in the movie and on the soundtrack to Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth - Movie Soundtrack, while Lemmy’s version of “Desire” appeared on the Ozzy Osbourne tribute album A Tribute to Ozzy: Bat Head Soup.
The final song with Lemmy involved is “Mama I’m Coming Home” which was not only the main power ballad on the album and the second single, it also became one of the biggest selling singles of Ozzy’s career.

The songs here vary from the instrumentally technical and heavy in nature to the power ballad styles of “Mama I’m Coming Home” and “Road to Nowhere” and “Time After Time”. These songs still seem to be able to slip into the usual Ozzy narrative without appearing overtly as though they are looking for commercial success. The fact that “Mama I’m Coming Home” was so successful in this perhaps shone a focus on those three songs more heavily than would otherwise have been the case. I get the feeling that it proved to influence the way future albums were written in a way, but this may well just have been because Bob Daisley was not utilised in any fashion beyond this album, and that Zakk Wylde was not always involved in the writing process after this album as much as he had been. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always enjoyed all three of those songs, and indeed quite love “Mama I’m Coming Home” - I think it just fits so smoothly into the concept of the album and its positioning in the track list works best in its favour. It’s interesting though that this style of song finds its way back into the mix, and both “Road to Nowhere” and “Time after Time” as well. I think the length of the album works in its favour. At almost an hour it is the longest of Ozzy’s albums to this point, and that allows these songs to sit within the mix without dominating the album.
Pack this alongside the fast tempo songs that are still what drives the album, and you can hear what makes this version of the band one of its best. "Won't Be Coming Home (S.I.N.)" is a great track where I still have no idea what the SIN stands for. “Desire”, “Hellraiser”, “Zombie Stomp”, “A.V.H”... they are all just fantastic. Indeed, that is definitely done with the songs that have the harder drums and utilise the brilliance of Zakk Wylde’s guitar. “Hellraiser” in particular is a gem, with great lyrics and Zakk’s guitar that dominates.
“No More Tears” is the epic, the track that binds the whole album together, and perfectly showcases the still brilliant sound and skill of Bob Daisley on bass guitar, the thrumming drum timing of Randy Castillo and that brutal and precision perfect guitar playing of Zakk Wylde, topped off by Ozzy’s still wonderful vocals over the top of it all. Of all the tracks that have appeared on Ozzy’s albums with his name on the cover – and there have been plenty – this track perhaps still showcases the best of everything that the band and the writing can offer.

When this was released in 1991, it was huge. As I have mentioned of the other albums I have reviewed that were released in that year, grunge had begun to squeeze its tentacles around the music industry, with its leading album just a few days away from being released itself. That this album still sold so well within this environment is perhaps somewhat remarkable, but it does truly show the high esteem that Ozzy Osbourne himself was held in, and his ability to cross genres was probably perfectly shown because of “No More Tears”.
I adored this album when it was released. Even amongst the plethora of albums that seemed to come out around this time, “No More Tears” still managed to take up a fair amount of my music listening time. For quite some time I even rated this as my favourite Ozzy Osbourne album, such was the overall standard of the songs and musicianship and song writing. Further contemplation beyond that period led me to re-evaluate and come back to the conclusion that those albums of the ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ band, the Rhoads-Daisley-Kerslake days, are quite special, but this album continues to rank barely behind them.

This was arguably Ozzy’s last great moment in music. The following album Ozzmosis was on a hiding to nothing in following this but still has some great material, but the lack of inspiration beyond that release has been quite noticeable. The tour that supported this album was called “No More Tours” as it was going to be the final time Ozzy went out and played live. There is good and bad in the fact that it proved not to be the case. The live album recorded on the tour, Live & Loud, is a cracker. It also meant that in 1998 Ozzy toured Australia on a greatest hits setlist that was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. And of course at the final two nights of this ‘supposed’ last tours he played two songs as an encore with the original Black Sabbath band, which... eventually.... led them to further tours and a final album some 20 years later.

No More Tears sometimes doesn’t get the credit and kudos it deserves. I think it is a brilliant album, one that everyone should own.

1128. System of a Down / Toxicity. 2001. 4/5

It’s hard to take in sometimes that System of a Down was first formed way back in 1994, generally before all the changes that happened to heavy metal and alternative music had really taken shape. But it didn’t take them long to find their feet and their standing in the music world, and with a style that was very much their own. After releasing their eponymous first album in 1998, the band comprising Serj Tankian on vocals, Daron Malakian on guitars, Shavo Odadjian on bass and John Dolmayan on drums moved back into the studio to produce their follow up, titled Toxicity. Also returning to produce the album was Rick Rubin, which only augured well for the final product.

Without a doubt, Toxicity is one of the most significant albums to come out since the turn of the century, and for many teenagers in particular at the time it was a defining album . And there are plenty of reasons for that. The album comes with riffs and lots of them, they're loud, they've got cool rhythm patterns (very much an underrated aspect of SOAD), the songs contain abstract and 'intellectual' lyrics, shouted vocals and more. It was one of those albums where you would allow people to try and attack you for being a fan of the band because the music was so different and out there, and that they obviously just ranted on about abstract things – and then you could have the sheer joy of actually telling these people what it was that the lyrics were talking about, and well and truly take the moral and intellectual high ground.
Toxicity copped a fair barrage on its release, especially as it occurred just a week before the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. The heavily politically motivated lyrics on several songs caused a stir, and this then led to several songs being banned from their airwaves, in particular “Chop Suey” whose lyric of “I cry when angels deserve to die” was taken somewhat out of context during the hysteria following those attacks – even though the song and album were recorded and released well before the actual events. This didn’t stop the song being nominated for awards or selling huge numbers of copies as a single release.
After the attack, Tankian published an essay exploring 9/11’s fallout from multiple angles. “If we carry out bombings on Afghanistan or elsewhere to appease public demand, and very likely kill innocent civilians along the way, we’d be creating many more martyrs going to their deaths in retaliation against the retaliation,” he wrote. “As shown from yesterday’s events, you cannot stop a person who’s ready to die.” Given recent events in Afghanistan, he was shown to be bang on.

Describing this album's musical content isn't easy. What you have here with Toxicity is an alternative album that transcends genre labels and many musical conventions, tying in an amazing range of genres with an incredibly diverse array of (generally) short tracks. There's thrash metal, hardcore punk, Greek and Middle Eastern music, folk, jazz, progressive rock, nu metal, art rock, and probably a dozen others in the mix. Listing here the bands that SOAD have at different times cited as their musical influences would take longer than these podcast episodes usually come out to. It all feels like the ingredients to a primordial soup, but this album sounds surprisingly fresh, creative and original even 20 years after its release by an alt-metal band. It is certainly no sophomore slump. The songs are generally pretty short and rock hard at high tempos, which can be a blessing and a curse; the fast tempo helps them fit in uncommon time signatures and gives them flexibility in structure, but this also becomes somewhat predictable and uniform as the album goes on, and many songs sound underdeveloped because of how short they are. One aspect of this album that I'm not sure many people talk about is how progressive it is, and this is probably one of the few albums that could be called both progressive metal and hardcore punk. In these short songs, the band fits in various structures and completely ignores the concept of a normal song structure. Even on the lead hit “Chop Suey!”, the band fits in various, diverse segments and abandons any transitions, but it works really, really well. The melody and catchiness also really helps, but it's an oddball song that somehow still became their biggest hit. And, even though the songs are structurally similar, they don't sound much like each other. There isn't one song here that you would think, "gee this sounds just like the last one".

Even for music in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, given all of the ways heavy metal had evolved and broken off and formed new extensions of themselves, this was DIFFERENT. This was frantic yet serene. It was angry yet intellectual. It was madness wrapped in a cocoon of sanity. It was strictly formed lyrical and musical tomes smashed by a sledgehammer and thrown at you from a distance of ten paces. Noting about it actually seemed to fit together, and yet it made perfect sense. It was never designed to be sat down and listened to in your armchair with a nice hot cup of tea, though 20 years on their would be youth of that generation who now do exactly that.
It’s possible I may never have truly discovered this album if I wasn’t involved with younger people at the time of its release through the cricket club I played in. The album first came to me from one of my best friends on one of his sojourns down from the big city, and I was pressed to listen to it more by the youngsters I then played cricket with on weekends. I didn’t take much convincing. Everything about it was a part of what I had listened to in music for 15 years or more before its release, it’s just that I didn’t always get all of that on one album, or in this case in a 30 second period of each song on the album.

Is it a surprise that five albums came about really quickly... and then the band went on a hiatus that has produced almost zero new music since? No, probably not, and that isn’t always a bad thing. Some things are hard to both reproduce and also to follow up. Toxicity is a product of its time, tied to it by the fact that it reflects so many different styles of music in one 14 song album that all more or less came into being in that same era. Everyone hopes for a new album from the band, much like they did after the same hiatus periods taken by bands like Faith No More and Soundgarden, and yet when they returned with new albums so many years after their previous ones, there was the general feeling of disappointment.

20 years on, Toxicity still brings out the same feelings of joy and amazement that it did on its release, and for an album like that, that is quite an achievement.

1127. Helloween / Helloween. 2021. 5/5

So Covid-19 may have delayed the release of this album by about 12 months, and it has certainly put a stop to any touring to promote it, but the album arrived as promised, and that is something I don’t think any fans of the band thought they would ever hear – Hansen and Kiske back in the band that they helped to create the major success of. Along with the initial tour to celebrate their reunion the band released a new single, “Pumpkins United”, that was written by Deris, Weikath and Hansen, and featured all three vocalists in capacities during the song. And when it was announced that a new album was to be recorded, it was announced that it would be helmed by this writing trio. Well, for whatever reason, that isn’t what happened.As it turns out, the writers are pretty much as they have been for the last 17 years for Helloween, with Deris and Gerstner doing the lions share, Weikath adding his 2-3 and Grosskopf 1-2. In fact, the only difference with the writers here is Kai Hansen’s 12+ minute monster “Skyfall” which concludes the album. Of course, that doesn’t mean that band members weren’t involved in the song writing process in other ways, but those being credited with the songs are the same as always. And perhaps that becomes a problem for some fans, as they could suggest that means the songs won’t be any different to what they have produced over recent albums.

But the songs they were writing on this album had lots more variables. Firstly, the addition of an extra guitarist, which opens up how the songs could be constructed. That of course could be done anyway, but with three different guitarists all adding their own flavour or style to the mix it was always going to improve what came out. And of course, the biggest change of all was the addition of not one, but TWO extra vocalists, all with their own style and their own way of interpreting how a song of a portion of the song should be sung, and of course the magnificence of their layered harmony vocals throughout. If for nothing else, that is what people should be coming to this album for.
And this may well beg the question – why would this album be any better than the last half a dozen or so released by the band? Some people either didn’t enjoy them, or didn’t listen to them. My own point of view of those albums is that I liked them all, and consider all of them around 7.5 to 8 out of ten. So musically, even if they were on a similar path I was always going to be okay with it.
I can give you a few reasons as to why this album is probably the best the band has released since Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy back in 2005, but the one, outstanding, fully fledged reason is the one that is the most obvious – from the very first note that is sung by Michael Kiske, this is already a winner. And it is hard to convey the joy of hearing Michael Kiske singing again for Helloween. I do enjoy both of the Unisonic albums, but they don’t match this. This is pure unadulterated Helloween.

And look… I am not taking anything away from either Andi Deris or Kai Hansen, or the great backing vocals of all of the other members of the band. Truly. Because they are tremendous. But it is Kiske that is the star turn. Because – after Keeper 1 and 2 – he was the voice of Helloween. Yes, I LOVE Kai’s singing on those early albums and on everything he has done with Gamma Ray, and I love Andi’s vocals on all of the albums since. But Michael is the pure voice, the one that dominates in different keys, that soars where it needs to, and is still and always will be the major factor in Helloween’s vocals. No matter what other elements have made this the album that it is – and there are, don’t get me wrong – as soon as you hear Michael you know it is Helloween. This reunion would not have worked without him.
But the combination of the three main Helloween vocalists here is superb. In the main it is Michael and Andi who share most of the lines, but Kai has his moments as well, and that is superb that he is. Many people don’t know just how good Gamma Ray is, but they are as awesome a band as Helloween, and Kai has been their lead vocalist for most of their albums, so it is great that he still holds a place in getting his shot here too – obviously along with his guitaring. And Andi Deris is again superb. As the man holding down the number one spot in the band for 25+ years, he had the most to lose by the return of these two former members, and yet he seems to have not only taken it in his stride, but thrived on it. He risked losing his profile, but I think he has only strengthened it because he has been so accommodating in the whole process. When they played live he had to accede those older songs back to Michael and Kai to be the major vocalists, but he did so stylishly. And here, he and Michael combine and mesh seamlessly, each taking their turn on the microphone and making every song a moment in time to remember.

And of course the musicianship is second to none. Drummer Dani Loble is a powerhouse behind the kit and has been a revelation since coming into the band. His drumming here is exceptional, and the sound he has got going is really superb. Part of this amazing experience is the fact that one of the people involved in the band was able to find Ingo Schwichtenberg's drum kit that he used to record the two Keeper album back in the late 1980’s, and that is the kit Dani used to record this album. And to me, his genuine excitement to be using that kit just shows not only how invested he is in the band and also its history. Alongside him as the other latecomer, Sascha Gerstner again delivers. His guitaring has always been great, and his song writing particularly strong. I probably didn’t pay him enough attention until I saw him perform live with the band on two tours of Australia, but seeing him up front just proved to me what a terrific addition to the band he has been since he arrived 20 years ago. “Best Time” and “Angels” are his two tracks on this album and again they have purpose in the lyrics and strength in the music. And as always on bass guitar, the grand old man of the four string, Marcus Grosskopf, who has been there since the very beginning, playing the most immaculate and amazing bass riffs, running those enormous hands all the way along the fretboard. You can only wonder why Marcus has always felt underrated as a musician and a songwriter. He rarely seems to get a mention when it comes to the great bass players, and yet he most definitely is. Just listen carefully to his work on this album again, it is amazing. And his one track on the album that is credited to his writing, is “Indestructible”

It is interesting to look back at the debut EP and first three albums by Helloween - Walls of Jericho, Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I and Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II, and note that all but three songs were written by either Michael Weikath or Kai Hansen – Michael Kiske’s “A Little Time”, “You Always Walk Alone” and “We Got the Right” are the only exceptions. They were the guitarists, the leaders. The guys that drove the band. Take a look at the songs on those four albums. That is an amazingly incredible collection of brilliant material to come from just two people in such a short space of time. What if they had stuck it out, and stayed together in Helloween. Could they have followed that up? History shows that without Hansen the band was not able to, but that is not to say it would have worked if Kai had not gone off to form Gamma Ray and record the brilliant Heading for Tomorrow album. Michael Weikath here is credited with three songs, the wonderful opening track performed so brilliantly by Kiske, “Out for the Glory” along with “Robot King” and “Down in the Dumps”. Kai only has the one writing credit, but it is pure Kai with it being the grandiose 12+ minute closing track “Skyfall”, the hallmark epic Kai Hansen song. There is some suggestion out there that Kai did not write more for the album because it would then become too much like Gamma Ray than Helloween. Whether or not that would be true, and while I would like to have heard more songs from Kai on the album, I also hope it is because he is saving them all up for the next Gamma Ray album... whenever that may be...

I think this album is a triumph. It is everything that could have been expected from this band and this reunion of old and current members. I think they have gone about it in a very sensible and ordered fashion. They finally came together and let bygones be bygones. They then toured together, putting together a great range of hits from the past and form the current day, and not only mixed three guitarists into the setting, but three vocalists as well. And THEN, they wrote and recorded an album together. And all of that has paid off.
The opening salvo of “Out for the Glory” is magnificent, followed by the brilliance of “Fear of the Fallen”. I still get shivers down my back every time I listen to this song, just listening to those harmonic vocals of Michael and Andi. It is a triumph, just fantastic. “Best Time” reminds me of the original Helloween because it is a happy song, just like their happy guitars were the hallmark of the band in its early years. “Indestructible” against soars because of the combined vocals of Andi and Michael. And the closing track on the album, “Skyfall”, is another masterpiece.
But there are others I could quite easily have included as absolute favourites, but that would mean including pretty much the whole album! “Mass Pollution” is a great song, one of Andi’s heavy tunes he likes to pump out every album, and so is “Rise Without Chains”. In all, Andi wrote four songs for the album as well as co-writing “Best Time” with Sascha. So much for ‘reducing his visibility’ with the arrival of the other two, hey!
What comes across best about this album is that it does successfully reintegrate the familiarity and love of the past with the solidity and finely tuned machine that is the band that has been playing for the last 20 years. It is the best of both worlds, but there was no certainty that it would work. But it has, and for all of the right reasons. None of the current five members has been overlooked or pushed out of the way. Indeed, they have retained their place in the structure as main songwriters and as performers. And Michael and Kai have not just been brought in as window shopping and to bring in the money. Michael’s vocal contributions, as I have already gushed over, make this immediately feel like we are back in the Keeper days, and it is both comforting and tremendously exciting to hear. And Kai’s vocal presence is also wonderfully succinct, while hearing his guitar solos in the mix once again also helps to regain that nostalgic presence.

I know not everyone will appreciate it, but for me, this lived up to all the hype, and lived up to everything I could have hoped for and imagined in a reunion of these members. Now let's get this pandemic behind us and get these guys back out on tour and showing us just how good these songs sound live!