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!

958. Helloween / The Time of the Oath. 1996. 4/5

The return of Helloween as a happy band, along with the return to the sound that their fans knew and longed for, as well as an album in Master of the Rings that was at the top of their form, was a relief. Whatever the aberrations that had occurred early in the decade, it appeared that the quintet was back in vogue, and all that was required now was a follow up album that showed that it hadn't been a one-off, and that they could continue to produce the kind of music their hard core fans were looking for. The question was, could they do it?

For me, the first four songs on the album showcase everything that was good on the previous album, and that the news was good. The opening of "We Burn" comes in hard and fast, leaving nothing to the imagination. The drums and bass line tear along, while speed is of the essence in the solo break as well, while Andi's enthusiasm in his vocals is contagious. This dives straight into "Steel Tormentor", which is one of my favourite songs of this era of the band. The song truly charges along, and is a great audience song too, encouraging plenty of supporting vocals along the way. Uli's brilliant drumming throughout is a star attraction, perfectly matching the urgency that the song requires. Just brilliant. "Wake Up the Mountain" again features that superb drive underneath by the drums and bass with the harmony vocals producing another great sing-along rendition. This is followed by "Power" which features some great guitaring from both Roland and track writer Weiki.
For me, the other two-thirds of the album is a bit of a mish mash. The excellence that is apparent on those opening tracks doesn't quite flow through to the remainder of the album. That doesn't make them bad, just different, or even indifferent. They look for something closer to the reflective though not quite as bad as balladish, and also look to draw upon the epic proportions without quite being able to achieve it. "Forever and One (Neverland)" sits in that power ballad genre, slowing up the tempo of the song and letting Andi sing in his soaring harmonies while the keyboards tend to dominate the structure of the song. It isn't a terrible song, but it is noticeable because of the major tempo shift from the opening songs. This becomes exacerbated by "Before the War" which heads back into that fast paced rhythm of Uli Kusch's drums and Marcus Grosskopf's bass driving the song, before Weiki and Roland's solo section really ups the ante nicely. The solo section of this song is the closest these two have come to mirroring what Weiki and Kai were able to do on those early Helloween albums. It sounds terrific, and is the equal of those opening tracks in true metal style.
"A Million to One" is an interesting song, because it has some musical flavour from the Chameleon album, but is written by Andi and Uli, who are the two members who were not in the band at that time. The differing piece of the puzzle that raises it above that album's songs is the harder and heavier rhythm section, and Andi's driving vocals, rather than soft and soaring vocals that highlighted the disappointing songs on that album. "Anything My Mama Don't Like" is a much more straight forward hard rock track with plenty of tongue in cheek about it, an enthusiastic vocal from Andi and supporting players and a raucous band in good spirits. "Kings Will Be Kings" rocks along at a good clip as well, rarely pausing for breath.
The final three tracks are where some problems lie. "Mission Motherland" is a nine minute epic which mixes a whole heap of different styles and tempos within the song, such that I'm not sure works for me at all. Their epics in the past have done it well, but this song eventually comes to bore me, especially through the middle of the track. "If I Knew" goes one further, really slowing up the tempo to what probably isn't quite what you would categorise as a power ballad, but it has many of the characteristics of it. These two songs, along with "Forever and One (Neverland)" would be the ones on this album that are the less likely ones for me.
The album concludes with the title track "The Time of the Oath", a track that while it has its moments, certainly with the riff and Andi's vocals, just feels to be missing something for me. I think it needed to be faster for me to really get into the song, rather than it have this very heavy riff and slow grunging tempo throughout.. Again, it isn't a bad song but it just lacks something that lifts it for me into that higher category on the album.

Overall Helloween has done an excellent job of returning to its roots, and drawing its inspiration from the beginnings of the band's musical writings, while not trying to reproduce them note for note. This is another excellent album, one that shows further growth from their previous album, and continues to point towards a bright future.

Rating:  "Flashing from down under, flesh and blood and thunder".   4/5

957. Helloween / Pink Bubbles Go Ape. 1991. 2.5/5

In 1991 I was on my first trip to Bali, and apart from sampling plenty of satay and Bintang, I also perused the elaborate cassette stalls that were set up in those days. I was still a vinyl collector in those days and was beginning to move towards CDs as well, but in Bali you could buy practically anything on cassette tape. As I browsed the selections, I came across this strange looking cassette cover with a woman trying to deep throat a fish. On closer inspection it was - FINALLY! - a new album from Helloween! You beauty I cried! And so the purchase was made and I had my first listening of new Helloween material in three years.

Having gotten over Kai Hansen's departure with the release of his new band Gamma Ray's album the previous year, I was interested to hear what Helloween would produce now that one of the main songwriters had moved on. In his place had emerged Roland Grapow, who had taken over the contribution schedule of Kai, as well as Michael Kiske stepping up his writing contributions as well.
So what do we have? Well, I can say with some certainty that although my youthful self was initially excited with the first couple of listens to the album, I knew something was wrong from the outset. This had increased in danger signs by the time I had arrived home from my overseas jaunt, and was confirmed when, even though I went out and bought this album on CD on my arrival home, it has rarely been pulled from the shelf since.
The continued development of the Helloween sound from album to album continues here, but is arguably even more dramatic than what occurred between their debut album and the Keeper albums. There is now no semblance of the speed metal that was a part of every track of the band's early days, and you would argue just how much of this material could really be attributed to the power metal genre either. It has a very easy listening feel to it, it isn't threatening and there's not a lot to get up and jump around with. The question that is raised most by this album is "who is to be credited with this softening approach to the music"? Historically, it has been Michael Kiske who has been lumbered with the blame for how this album, and eventually with the follow up album Chameleon, was written. Given his later comments on the heavy metal music genre, he was probably an easy target. But he wasn't the only writer on this album. Perhaps the larger problem was the lack of material produced by Michael Weikath, who along with Kai Hansen had produced the bulk of the recorded material in the band's history before this. Weiki's only written contributions on Pink Bubbles Go Ape are the second single "Number One", which is a somewhat lumbering power ballad, and a co-write with Kiske on "Heavy Metal Hamsters" which is goofy interlude somewhat in the traditions of "Rise and Fall". Given the almost complete revamp of writers on this album, it probably shouldn't be surprising that the sound of the album is almost a complete 180 degree reversal from their earlier work.
Even when trying to look on the positive side of the album, it is difficult to decipher what works here and what doesn't. The opening gambit of Kiske's "Pink Bubbles Go Ape" was amusing the first couple of times, but appears like an indulgence not worth pursuing after that. The first single "Kids of the Century" is fun enough and listenable enough, as is the follow up "Back on the Streets", but by this time it is obvious the who musical direction is being twisted. Following "Number One" and "Heavy Metal Hamsters", "Goin' Home" and "Someone's Crying" don't inspire any further wonderful feelings about where we are headed. "Mankind" is probably the closest you will come to here of a fully recognisable Helloween song, though it still mixes things within the framework that make you wonder what is happening. "I'm Doin' Fine, Crazy Man" further pushes those boundaries. "The Chance" at least allows Kiske to fully utilise his amazing voice and it travels along in a pleasing way, that perhaps only sounds that way because of what has come before it. Any good work is washed away with acid by the dreadful and deploring closing track "Your Turn", which would do the term 'power ballad' an injustice. Yes, that's how much I think of it.

About the best I can say about this album is that when I put it on today to review, I listened to it five times all the way through, and found I could accept it for what it is without trying to make it something it isn't. By my standards of Helloween the band, this is not a Helloween album. It's an album that has members of that band playing on it, but its like a side project, one where they have diversified their sound from what they would normally play. I can listen to it fine enough, but it brought no feeling in me like the best heavy metal albums do. It is like an easy-listening album. Perhaps that is this album's greatest put down.

Rating:  "We're the Kids of the Century, it wasn't our fault, everything's done now we fall".   2.5/5

956. Helloween / Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 2. 1988. 5/5

Sometimes it is handy to have an exchange student come to your school for 12 months. We did so in my final year of high school in 1987, and when Hans returned to his native Norway we kept in touch via letters (no emails and texts and Facebook in the good old days, just hard copy writing) in a story I related in the episode of Season 2 of this podcast that relates to the sister album to this, “Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part 1”. Check it out, it’s a great episode, and a great album. Having introduced us to Helloween in that year he spent at our school, I made mention in one of my letter responses that I was enjoying their music thoroughly. His reply was to send over yet another cassette, this one containing their brand new album, “Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II”, which was all the rage in Norway where it went to #12 on their album charts, but for the time being was nowhere in sight in Australia. And thus was my first exposure to an album that was to dominate my listening for the next 12 months and pretty much the rest of my life.
As has been reported in several media, Helloween’s initial idea for their previous album had been to make it a double album, encompassing all of the Keeper of the Seven Keys. Their record company had refused this and insisted that they be released separately. However, the outro to the first album, “Follow the Sign”, acts as a flow on to the first intro on this album, “Invitation”, so that you can listen to them both as a double album and enjoy the entire experience as the band initially imagined it. And to be honest, if you listen to that first album, how can you possibly not go on to listen to this album immediately after? It is impossible.
“Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1” had had amazing sales, and the tour to promote it had taken the band throughout Europe as well as the UK and the US. It was around this time the first cracks began to appear in the band, with Kai Hansen picketing for time off from their hectic touring schedule to rest, and the first signs of dissention about the songs coming to the fore. As the bands popularity was continuing to grow they wanted to build on that and so stopping touring was not on the table. After 12 months of constantly being on the road, the band then entered the studio to finish writing and to record their follow up to that album.

Modern day reviews of "Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 2” often appear to either praise the album as a brilliant addition to the band's legacy, and a standard bearer for the genre that they were blazing, or that it is a weaker, less heavy version of the band, stripped of the speed and power that was a part of the band in its beginning. In general, these opinions will vary as to whether those people grew with the band through the 1980's, or came into the band at a later date either through isolation or age barriers. As someone who was fortunate enough to discover the band when they were at their theoretical peak my opinions settle in the first category. In this day and age I can see why others opinions may not match with mine. Listening to the album while trying to put aside 35 years of knowing every note an nuance of the album, and trying to be objective about what I hear in a more modern sense rather than an historical one, there is a slight case that can be understood why younger listeners out there may think this is less dazzling than previous efforts, or even future efforts. Whereas the songs on “Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I” equally drew on positive attitudes towards life along with science fiction themes and even the power ballad, what do we have here? "Rise & Fall" is full of complete nonsense lyrics - fun yes, but very cartoonish in its output. "Dr Stein" pokes fun at the old Frankenstein story, changing it up and really once again having fun with the whole story. "I Want Out" is a teen anthem that could apply anywhere through your lifetime (though perhaps Kai’s lyrics were in fact written about other issues he had at the time), but appears aimed at that age group. But guess what? I LOVE those songs! They are brilliant, mixing the fun of their subject matter into music that is happy and joyous. They all have those 'happy guitars' that made Helloween the band it was during this era. Mixed in with these light hearted songs are the serious, hard core lyrical songs, such as "We Got the Right" and "March of Time" and "Eagle Fly Free". Each of these are epic in their own right. Apart from their lyrical exhibitionism, the songs climb throughout to reach crashing crescendos, while Michael Kiske's vocals soar to unobtainable heights for those mere mortal like me who want to sing along.

“Keeper of the Sevens Keys, Part 2” is heavily weighted with material by Michael Weikath, whereas the previous album had more material from Kai Hansen. Initially this had been because of Michael’s absence for much of the Keeper 1 album, but the balance of having more songs composed by Kai on that album was utilised again here with the majority of the album composed by Weikath, thus each album having a similar style of songs throughout.

The brilliant instrumental "Invitation" segues straight into "Eagle Fly Free", which not only is a marvellous opening track, it also gives every individual the chance to show their wares - Kiske his vocal talents, Weikath and Kai their own solo spots along with the dual harmony break, and Marcus and Ingo both get a solo spot of their own as well. A terrifically constructed song. More than that, it is an epic opening song. If anything could have promoted Helloween to the world, it was this song. Kiske’s vocals especially are out of this world for someone who was still yet to reach the age of 20 when this album was recorded. This is followed by "You Always Walk Alone", which is a come down from the previous song. "You Always Walk Alone" changes in tempo and pace a bit too much, such that it can feel a bit choppy. The final third of the song, from the solo breaks to the climbing vocal strains of the final chorus is excellent, it's just that sometimes the first half of the song can get a bit lost within itself. "Rise and Fall" and "Dr Stein" are the two Weikath fun numbers, which Kiske has a ball with when singing them. “Rise and Fall” combines both a serious side of the song, which seems to be referencing Michael’s breakdown prior to recording the previous album, along with several episodes of the breakdown of relationships, being it dragons and knights, spacemen and wives, Romeo and Juliet. While the music and pieces of the lyrics come across as fun and bright, perhaps the undertones are not quite so much. “Dr Stein” takes on the basic storyline of Frankenstein, and creates as sequel, mixed with Michael’s own semi-serious view on the world. Both of the songs are humorous and playful songs, with the underlying serious nature that the band still had running through the lyrics of all of their songs.

"We Got the Right" and "March of Time" return the album to serious topics within the lyrics, but the songs are quite magnificent. They rise in majesty mainly thanks to Kiske’s vocals and the backing chorus, which helps turn good songs into great ones. The musicianship here also is top shelf, complementing everything that has been inspired by the writing. “We Got the Right” sings for the average person, to stand up to those that believe they have the power to do everything they want, while “March of Time” preaches not wasting your life and using each moment you have. Both of these songs have wonderful, spine-tingling moments, both provided in the main by Michael Kiske’s vocals, and both in the back part of each song. In “We Got the Right” the final chorus is sung with such high emotion that it is impossible to sing along such are the heights of his voice. And in “March of Time”, the final bridge leading into the last chorus is just magnificent, beginning with ‘Please, please, help me see, the best way to be’ into ‘Life’s too short to cry, long enough to try’ and into the chorus, it is one of the best phases of any song ever. Chills.

These are followed by the anthemic "I Want Out", the single from the album whose video showcased the brilliant musicianship of the group as well as their playful side. The lyrics may appear somewhat teenagerish if taken on face value, but the message behind them is significant, and helps to make this one of Helloween's most identifiable songs. Certainly my kids know it off by heart. But there is a deeper meaning to the song, which becomes more apparent when you find out about Kai’s disapproval of what was happening in and around the band at the time. Knowing all that, and listening to the song again, you can hear him asking for a change, to come to terms with what was happening with the band and its management. As Kai’s two contributions to this album, “March of Time” and “I Want Out” tell a story in themselves.
The album then concludes with the second part of what has become known as the Keepers Trilogy, with the title track "Keeper of the Seven Keys", which like its counterpart on the previous album stretches beyond thirteen minutes while telling its tale through the changing tempo and waves of guitar. It is an amazing track, beautifully composed and brilliantly played and sung. It's a fitting way to conclude an album that is epic in its own way.

Apart from the songwriting, the musicianship on this album is beyond magnificent. Ingo Schwichtenberg’s drumming is on another level, precise and intricate, with perfectly punctuating double kick and some amazing rolls throughout the songs that require it. It is probably the finest performance of his all-too-short career. He is amazing on the opening two tracks, but then in “Dr Stein” where he is asked to just play the bare minimum, he is still so noticeable because of the WAY he plays the straight stuff. An amazing drummer and a wonderful performance on this album. Markus Grosskopf once again shows why his is one of the most underrated bass players of all time, with his amazing work throughout. Listening closely to his playing on this album is a joy in itself. His left hand is all over the fretboard, running back and forth and underscoring the guitarists with a base that is as important as any other part of each song. Just magnificent. Kai and Michael’s guitaring is probably the benchmark for the band. The so-dubbed ‘happy guitars’ of Helloween are what mark each and every one of their songs, their harmonies creating the sound that IS Helloween, while their soloing is pure joy. On top of their song writing, they have again created an album that is beyond compare. And then we have the lead vocalist, Michael Kiske. His ability to hit those high notes is one of his superpowers, but it is the emotion he can bring to a song with those vocal chords that truly win the day. The finishing flourish of “Eagle Fly Free”, the final chorus and scream of “You Always Walk Alone”, the emoting throughout “We Got the Right”, and that closing bridge and chorus of “March of Time”, is what still gives me shudders down the spine. This quintet, apart from bring amazing in every way, combine to become greater as a whole than the sum of their parts.

I related earlier in this episode how I came to not only discover Helloween, but first get this album. And I still remember the first time I listened to it, on my parent’s stereo, and how truly amazed I was at it. I already loved “Walls of Jericho” and “Keeper 1”, but this went to another level. It was, and is, the album where the band’s sound matured even more, much closer to a power metal album than a speed metal album which is what their first two releases basically were. “Ride the Sky” and “Eagle Fly Free” are both majestic opening songs from two magnificent albums, but to listen to them both you can notice the slight differences in them.

In 1988 for me, this album was a revelation. Coming off the back of Iron Maiden’s “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” album earlier in the year, this just attached itself to my psyche, and that cassette (on which on the other side Hans had recorded the Helloween EP and some B-side singles) started smoking from the number of times it was played over and over again. Utopia Records soon had my money for the vinyl and eventually CD copies of the album as well. There would barely have been a three-month period in the past 35 years that I haven’t listened to this album. It has gone everywhere with me, either being a permanent member of my car’s cassette collection, or on album playlists in the days of mp3’s, or now as a constant streaming companion on trips anywhere. In the band I had so much fun with not long after this album was released, we had a half-hearted effort at playing “I Want Out” before surprising fans who actually turned up to watch us live by playing “Dr Stein”. It will be easy to conclude that I love this album. Indeed, alongside everything Helloween had released to this point of their career, I find it to be completely brilliant. This was the music of my late teens, alongside the typical contemporaries such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest who obviously influenced them so much. On my work playlist over the last month, surrounded by the albums that make up the episodes around this one on this podcast, it was this album every single time that lifted my head, and brought me out of whatever I was doing, and had me singing along all over again.

As was expected with the building of frustration over the previous two years, Kai left the band following this album, and it took years for Helloween to recover. And while they have managed to write and record some terrific albums since, nothing matches their output prior to Kai’s departure. This was the band’s golden age, and it highlights and dominates that part of my life as well. This album sits comfortably in my top 20 of all time. And so it should in yours.

 
Rating: "Leave time behind, follow the sign, together we'll fly someday". 5/5

955. Helloween / Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1. 1987. 5/5

As related in my review of Walls of Jericho, back in 1987 our school hosted an exchange student from Norway called Hans. He had brought with him his own musical interests, one of which was a band called Marillion, which never really caught on with me but found acceptance amongst others. What did pique my interest was two albums he had on one cassette, that I quickly got a copy of once I had heard them. Both were by a band called Helloween which until that time I had never heard of. On Side A was the album Walls of Jericho. On Side B was an album that had the endearing title of Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I. These two albums changed the way I felt about music in a profound and amazing way.

There are some quite startling changes between the way the music sounds between these two albums, and it almost quite literally comes down to the vocals of the two lead singers. Kai Hansen sang on both the initial EP and on Walls of Jericho. The songs were fast and heavy, true speed metal, and Kai's vocals exacerbated this, with those screams that would become so much a part of his early repertoire. There was no time for rest, this was an album that pushed the boundaries and used all of the skills of the band. But it was Kai's voice in the live setting, along with playing guitar, that led to the band looking for a lead singer to come into the mix. Enter Michael Kiske, the man with The Voice, and with it and his own writing ideas there was an almost immediate maturing of the music, without losing the intensity and the intrinsic heaviness of the material. With it however was a barrier, at least in my mind. Kai's version of the earlier songs always sound better, Michael doesn't quite have the grind that is necessary for those songs. The songs here though had a less speed metal approach, instead moving forth into newer waters, into a genre of metal that perhaps this album and the follow up created, that of power metal.
The album opens with the instrumental stage-setting "Initiation", which segues straight into "I'm Alive", which bursts forth with enthusiasm and an immediate impact of Kiske's amazing vocal talent. Straight away it all sounded so easy to sing, and he had those higher notes flowing freely. The music is terrific. It has those harmony guitars, which from here begin to produce that Helloween patented "happy guitars" sound which became their trademark. Yes, the tempo has slowed from the frantic output of the previous album, and this is noticeable for the majority of this album. Into the second song "A Little Time", and we also have ticking clocks, alarms and other such elements being thrown into the songs. We also have the first real support vocals coming through, backing up the lead vocalist in support of the song. Even the brilliant "Twilight of the Gods" has its tempo reeled in. If this had been performed 18 months earlier, it would have been at twice the pace that this is played at. That's not to say that the tempo is slow here, but it is certainly modified from those songs that came before this album. But the harmony vocals here, along with the harmony guitars, just make this a pleasure to listen to and sing along to. The rhythm of Ingo's drums and Marcus' bass line are winners here again, especially underneath the solo sections of the song. Brilliant.
The one downside of this album is that the song "A Tale That Wasn't Right" could possibly be held accountable for creating the 'power metal ballad', that awful indictment upon the genre. True, the song is a love story, and has those connotations, and the style of the song is what was followed, the template of you will. The problem with this in the long run is that this song is just awesome in the way it is written and performed. Kiske's amazing vocals over the acoustically played guitar, the pitiful wailing electric guitar into the chorus and solo, and the mournful harmony vocals backing up the lead. Yes, that IS the problem, because the fact it is so good is why it was then copied - and everything that followed from it from every other power metal band just comes across as crap, because they can't match how wonderful this sounds. So damn you Michael Weikath and co, you created the bloody power metal ballad.
The second side of the album is opened up by the single and perennial set list classic "Future World", which now finds itself played by two bands everywhere in the world. Again, it is not as frantic as it may have been even those few short months earlier, but it has become folklore amongst the Helloween community, and a crowd favourite sing-along song at all Helloween concerts. This is followed by what is now popularly known as the first part of the Keepers Trilogy, the epic "Halloween", the 13 minutes plus monster that perhaps best spans the two early generations of Helloween, incorporating their longer and faster tracks that have blistering guitar solos and harmonies with the maturing aspect of willing to use the quieter set and lesser paced aspects while giving Kiske his chance to showcase that amazing vocal range and emoting ability. This song has it all, sewn together in perfect order and dropped onto the vinyl in a pristine condition to exhilarate fans everywhere. Each member of the band has their chance to shine here, and each does it with perfection.
The closing segue of "Follow the Sign" seems slightly out of place by the time you reach the end of the album. A quiet instrumental piece with a few spoken words that only runs for a little under two minutes, it seems a strange way to finish off an album. That is, until you are aware of the fact that this was originally supposed to be the first album of a double album, with Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II that second album. This, "Follow the Sign" should have paved the way to moved straight into "Invitation" and then "Eagle Fly Free" from that album. Of course, once both albums were released, you could actually do that anyway.

Perhaps if you were not growing up in this era, this album may not be as important or influential to you as it was to me. This was one of those defining moment in music for me. The music bounds from the speakers, and Michael's vocals pound your senses with immediate effect. It isn't as heavy as their previous work, but it is the forerunner to all that came after it in this genre. To me it still brings back amazing memories from that time of my life, and I still smile every time I put it on. You can't ask for anything more on an album than that.

Rating:  "Make your choice, it's hell or paradise".   5/5

954. Helloween / Walls of Jericho. 1985. 5/5

Back in 1987, in my final year of high school, our school hosted an exchange student from Norway called Hans Hoie. He was a personable funny guy, awkwardly tall, almost goofy in his conversational English, but was a much loved person amongst our student collective. Apart from all of his other friendly attributes, Hans had his own musical tastes, and he had fortunately brought cassettes with him of his favourite albums. Two of those albums were by a band that we had never heard of, called Helloween. The first of these albums was entitled Walls of Jericho.

The opening stanza here is as good as any other album I know. The opening instrumental beginnings of "Walls of Jericho" blow their horns and crash their walls such that is related in the fable, before directly blasting into the start of "Ride the Sky" courtesy of Kai Hansen's amazing high pitched scream. Then we are speeding through the song, driven by those brilliant guitars and the unique and masterful bass line running up and down the neck throughout. Kai's vocals reach heights that were hinted upon on their first release EP. The solo break again defines a Helloween song, with each guitarist having their own solo, intertwined with the harmony guitar between, and finished off by Kai's amazing rising cacophony. It perhaps wouldn't surprise you to know that this is one of my favourite songs of all time. "Ride the Sky" has been so probably from the first moment I ever heard it, played on a tinny old portable cassette player at a party on the beach at the Boneyard in Kiama Downs. As I sat there that evening and listened to this album, I marvelled at what it produced. To that point in time I hadn't heard anything like it.
"Reptile" snuggles its way in between the faster songs on the album, and does in some way halt the momentum that was created by the opening track. Now of course it could just be me coming off my "Ride the Sky" high, but there seems less individualistic joyfulness in this song. Certainly the tempo is completely different, and Michael Weikath's monster obsession comes to the fore again. It's one of two songs on this album that just maybe misses a trick, perhaps just doesn't fit the reigning madness around it. Following on is a return to the manic speed that epitomised the opening track. Wiki's "Guardians" blitzes along, with Kai at high end of his vocal range for almost the whole length of the song, with no pause for breath for any of the group. It's a beauty, but goddamn Kai makes it hard to sing along given the high register, especially the closing lines "PUPPETS ON A STRING! PUPPETS ON A STRING!". Great stuff.
"Phantoms of Death" has been another of my favourite tracks for a number of years. This is not only a great song lyrically about the destruction we bring upon ourselves, musically it is also another belter, blazing along at a great rate, and mixes a fantastic solo section where both Kai and Weiki trade licks at an alarming rate, before we come to the conclusion of the song and the grand reveal of the root of the song, "Who are they? Who are the Phantoms? Will they end our lives? It's you and me, you and me, open up your eyes!".
Side 2 of the album kickstarts with "Metal Invaders" which maintains the rage, mixing the metaphors of invaders from space in metal machines and the mental visions of heavy metal also within the song. Kai's voice again reaches for the ceiling while Marcus' bass line dominates throughout in a brilliant way. This is followed by the groove of "Gorgar", a slower tempo song but with a great guitar riff throughout. This surely must be written from experience, about spending all of their money on playing on this pinball machine. It's another example of a great lyric coming from something so simple. The chanting chorus "Gorgar will eat you" plays over and over in your head. It's catchy as hell. The anthemic "Heavy Metal (Is The Law)" raises the stakes once again, recorded as a 'live' background chants along to give it a live feel. Listen to Marcus's ridiculous bass guitar through the 'crowd chant' led by Kai. It is ludicrous and shows off his amazing talent.
The closing track is the epic of the album. Michael Weikath's "How Many Tears" began life as an orchestral and operatic piece that was transformed into this full boar, no holds barred finale. I still get goosebumps hearing Kai sing that chorus, his vocals soaring again throughout, to the heights of that closing note. This is a masterpiece to finish the album, it's message still as relevant today as it was back then.

This album, and the one that follows, both became milestones for my music listening tastes. It opened up new doors, a real pathway to the burgeoning and building metal scene in Europe. It was my first step in the direction of the power metal wave, that for me has since become almost my mainstream metal listening group. The quartet that played on this album could not have wished for a better platform to thrust themselves into the world of heavy metal, and for me it still stands as a testament not only to their talent and ability as musicians and songwriters, but what can be achieved when the stars align in their magical way.

Rating:  "Rearrange the master plan, take the future in my hands, to be free and not trapped anymore".  5/5

953. Helloween / Helloween [EP]. 1985. 5/5

The coming together of the band that would become Helloween is a similar tale to most of the bands that you know and love. It was the coming together of likeminded teenagers who had been out there gigging away in the hope of making it big and finding that circumstances kept getting in their way. In the end it was a coming together of several bands to form the one that got the original foursome together. Kai Hansen had been in a band with his childhood friend Piet Sielck called Gentry, which would eventually morph into Iron Fist, where he had met drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg. This band worked around for a while before Sielck decided to leave to pursue a career as a technician and then producer, and thus the group disbanded. Hansen then played in a band called Second Hell for a time, now coming across a bass guitarist by the name of Marcus Grosskopf. This wasn’t working out as he would have hoped and having struck up a friendship with the band Powerfool, and in particular with their guitarist Michael Weikath, he was of the opinion that he should join that band instead. At the same time, Weikath was thinking that he’d like to team up with Hansen, but not in the band he was currently in. So instead of Hansen going one way, it was Weikath who went the other, and two decided to form a new band based around the two of them. Joining them came Grosskopf from Second Hell, and also Schwichtenberg from the ashes of Iron Fist. In 1983, with the quartet complete, now all that remained was to come up with a name for the band. According to the band, it was Ingo who came up with the idea of calling themselves Helloween, mainly because Ingo liked the word hell. Go figure.
In 1984, the band recorded two songs for the metal sampler for Noise Records called “Death Metal” where four bands – Running Wild, Hellhammer (who eventually became Celtic Frost), Dark Avenger and Helloween, all contributed two songs to the compilation album. Helloween’s two songs, which ended up being the two final songs on side B of the album, were Michael Weikath’s “Oernst of Life” and Kai Hansen’s “Metal Invaders”. The popularity raised by this first recorded effort by the band led Noise to offer Helloween a contract to record a debut studio EP, for which they went into the studio to record in January of 1985. The final result was the eponymously named EP, released at the end of April that year, and which marked the beginning of the band that changed the way heavy metal was heading throughout Europe into the future.

Despite the fact that there are just five songs on this EP, the energy and speed and blistering brilliance of this first instalment for Helloween delivers on every level imaginable. The album begins with the unexpected intro of the alarm clock waking up its occupant on the morning radio station, and then changing channels while getting up and making breakfast. It does make you wonder what the hell you have walked into the first time you hear it. From here though, Kai's ear splitting scream as the intro to "Starlight" brings your senses to attention. There's no doubting what the band are sending towards you from the start of this song. The cacophony of drums and guitars to open up might sound haphazard yet is anything but. It speeds along at a monumental rate and at volume through your speakers. The twin guitars of Hansen and Weikath make their mark as a classic combination from the outset, each willing to take on a role by themselves, but also magnificent in tandem harmony. Marcus Grosskopf's bass runs overtime, his fingers running up and down the fretboard like an over excited mouse. It's a unique sound too, not looking to copy anyone, but it gives the Helloween sound a beautiful bass groove of its own that is a uniqueness that dominates for the foreseeable future. Topping this off are the free flowing drums of Ingo Schwichtenberg who fires away on all cylinders, helping to drive the music to new levels. This amazing quartet, full of youth and fire, gives up everything they have in the name of speed metal.
"Starlight", with its lyrics focused on drug use and dependence, stating “You’re hanging around and got nothing to do, you wanna get out some pills in front of you, you fly on invisible wings, be careful my friend for too many can kill, you say that the meaning of life’s in those pills, you forget all earthly things”. starts off the EP with a bang.
Then we bounce into the second track "Murderer", which kicks off with each instrument joining the fray one bar at a time, before exploding into the song proper. It is a superb song. It is almost joyous in its format despite the lyrics from the song telling an otherwise brutal story. Kai sings: “You didn’t want it but now he is dead, and you’re on the run from the law, Murderer, in every town, Murderer, to the whole world, Murderer, you’re on the run, Murderer, you’ll have to kill again” - with a free flowing riff through the verses while Kai smoothly blends his vocals over the top, both guttural through the verse and then into the high pitched screams later in the chorus, a range that is truly amazing to hear for the first time. He really moves between the gears on this track. Ingo's double kick powers through the whole song without pause, before those harmony guitars and Marcus' rumbling bass underneath take us through the solo break. Such an easy song to bang your head along to and play air guitar at the same time. Superb. It sounds so simple, and yet it is technically perfect.
The gunfire and warfare set up the start of "Warrior", before the staccato riff and drums blaze into the song with pace and fury. Again it is the brilliant drum beat from Ingo that drives your love of this song, it just has the perfect combination of toms and double kick to give it a faster feel than a normal 4/4 time. This is followed by yet another brilliant transfer to the harmony and solo guitar pieces, each complementing the other. The lyrics hark on the desolation of war, by declaring: “Blackened sky a final flash, death is in the air, warriors without a face, destruction everywhere, silent falls the hammer, no one hears the cries, no escaping from this hell, your prayers won’t be heard – so die!” It is another triumph, and so far on this EP we are 3 from 3.
This is followed by the aggressive and even faster "Victim of Fate" with the open thunderclap of lightning and the opening exhilarating guitar riff which rattles along at a blitzkrieging rate, and Kai giving those vocal cords a true test at their higher altitudes. He sings: “I had to kill people to save my own life, I don’t wanna go to hell, I started at the bottom, I’m heading for the top, I’ll never return I’ll never go back to that goddamn part of town, headhunters won’t get me cos I’m not stupid, but this ain’t the life I dreamed of”, almost following on from the themes of both “Murderer” and “Warrior”. This is all mixed in with the eye of the storm in the middle of the track, where the pace disappears, all becomes quiet with Kai almost spoken-wording his way through the bridge, before the song climbs back into mayhem to conclude. Just another brilliant song. These three songs in the middle of the EP are all Kai’s solo compositions and it probably shows. The bookends are composed by Kai and Michael, and the slight differences in those tracks can be countered by Weikath’s influence.
The final song "Cry for Freedom" begins and ends with a very Scorpions-like feel to it. It also has a riff that mirrors the one from the UFO song “Doctor Doctor” which ties it to the influence those two bands had on the writers of this song. While the song continues at mostly the same cracking speed as the other tracks there is a more melodic sound about the track with those influences being incorporated and concludes this EP on a high note.

My journey with Helloween began at the end of our school days in 1987. For the second half of that school year we had had an exchange student from Norway in our year, Hans Hoie, and he had brought his own music with him. One of those cassettes was a C90 that had Helloween’s “Walls of Jericho” on one side and “Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1” on the other. This was my introduction to this amazing band, and I still have the memories of listening to that tape over and over at different parties during that period. Hans went back to Norway, and asked many of us to stay in touch, and so a few months later I wrote him a letter, basically asking how he was going, and what was happening back in Kiama. A few weeks later I received a letter back from him, thankful for hearing from me, and also with a surprise. I have mentioned how much I loved those two Helloween albums (having taped them off him before he left for home), and with this letter had come another cassette tape, which contained not only the band new album from the band (“Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 2”) and some singles and B-sides, but also the band’s debut EP simply titled “Helloween”. Thanks to Hans, this is how I got to experience those first four – and still the best four – Helloween albums. And without him, who knows how long it may have been before I got to.
I loved this EP from the very beginning. As marvellous as Michael Kiske’s voice is on the two Keeper albums and beyond, there has always been something about Kai Hansen’s vocals that I love. And the energy emitted from the five tracks on this EP is astounding. They throw everything at this EP. The speed of the tracks for me is awesome, I just love it. The twin guitars play off each other perfectly, and Marcus Grosskopf’s bass guitaring is next level, not sitting on one string and strumming the rhythm, he moves along that fretboard with fingers that must never stay still. And Ingo’s drumming... just superb.
And what wouldn't I do to go back in time and see these guys performing at this stage of their career. It must have been absolute mayhem of the greatest kind. This is raw and uninhibited speed metal that not only gives a snapshot of how this brilliant band took their first steps on the world stage, but also of the talent that was brimming over, and the promise within that lay ahead for not just one band, but in the longer term for two bands.
I put this back on the turntable a few days ago, thinking as I did that it wasn’t that long ago since I last listened to it. Because when it comes to Helloween’s first four albums, it is never very long between listens. The band itself is such a foundation member of The Creation of Me that I never want to be away from them for too long. And this EP is very much a part of that. I still remember the first time I put that cassette that Hans sent me in mid-1988 on my parents' stereo and heard the opening scene of “Starlight”, before Kai’s scream shatters the scene and cranks up the party. And every time I have listened to this album again over the past few days, I get those same feelings of joy rushing back in.
Can you rank this EP along with the rest of the Helloween discography? In the long run you can do whatever you want! There are 16 Helloween studio albums, not including this one. Pretty simply, the first three albums and this EP rank in an order of 1-4, and the rest sort themselves out, and that will never change.
This was the beginning of something very special. The band’s debut album would be released a few months later, and then a new recruit lead vocalist would join them for two of the best albums ever recorded. The period from 1985 to 1988 was like a supernova of brilliance that did unfortunately have to fade. In amongst that, “Helloween” the EP shines as brightly now as it did on release 40 years ago.

859. Helloween / My God-Given Right. 2015. 4/5

I don't know what excited me more about the release of My God-Given Right - the fact that we were about to receive another new Helloween album, or the fact that the band announced it would tour Australia once again after seven years. It was probably equal amounts, because Helloween's recent output has been excellent, not only holding up the flame for the power metal genre that they pretty much invented, but not resting on their laurels when it comes to making great albums.

Whereas 7 Sinners was more of a typical speed power metal utilising noticeable keyboards throughout, and Straight Out of Hell tended to have less of the keyboard element and wind back those ultimate power metal elements, My God-Given Right winds everything back even more, and is much closer to pure heavy metal album than those previous two. it is not completely devoid of those elements, but there seems to be a real effort to get back to what made Helloween great, which was those amazing happy guitars melodically playing off each other, over the top of that amazing rhythm section of bass and drums and with the sweet vocals rising above it all.
"Heroes" is driven along by Daniel Löble's double kick throughout, and induces an anthem-like chorus that has you joining in (especially when listening to the album while driving along in your car). This segues straight into "Battle's Won" which immediately increases the speed of the album, and vocally and musically transcends the ages of Helloween. "My God-Given Right is another great anthemic-like song, featuring the best of Andi Deris' vocals and speed metal riffing, while "Stay Crazy" holds itself into straight forward power metal, with solid drum and guitar riffs enhanced by Andi's vocals and great solo licks.
"Lost in America" channels that playful element of Helloween, both lyrically and musically through the twin guitars. It reminds me a lot of another playful song, Gamma Ray's "Master of Confusion" from last year's Empire of the Undead album. Not only does it harp on a true incident where the band had no idea where in South America they were after several delays and changed plane trips, musically it reminds you of the best that this band can produce. This is followed up by "Russian Roule" which tunes down into a generally heavier song. "The Swing of a Fallen World" turns a corner from all of this merriment, focusing on darker elements lyrically and musically. There's no happy guitars in this song, it is set hard on a grinding guitar riff that is the platform for the song with Andi's vocals over the top, while even the solo sections settle into that heavier rhythm. "Like Everybody Else" follows a similarly darker, deeper path. "Creatures in Heaven" rifles along at a more Helloween-ish speed, before the return of an old-fashioned-type Helloween song in "If God Loves Rock 'n' Roll", almost cartoonish in both lyrics and music, with a catchy chorus break and great solo's, along with a crowd-involvement dubbed in for the masses.
"Living on the Edge" is Markus Grosskopf's addition to the album, and as with most of his songs is has a lively vibe and a great bass undertone  "Claws" sets off back in an up-tempo realm, and wends its way throughout in classic Michael Weikath tones and tome. The closing song "You, Still of War" could be paired up with "The Swing of a Fallen World", though its music is lighter than the earlier track, and contains more noticeable keys, as well as having a more 'epic' feel to the song structure. The first couple of times I listened to the album I wasn't overly enamoured by the song, but as my CD has clicked over each time I have grown to appreciate it much more.
The mood and path of the songs all follow the lyrical content. Those songs with a darker element are all more of a slower, heavier riffed atmosphere, such as " The Swing of a Fallen World" and "Like Everybody Else". These songs in particular echo their subject matter in their musical style. Those songs that are of a light-hearted nature are further enhanced by those happy guitars, such as in "Lost in America" and "If God Loves Rock 'n' Roll", where they are in their element.

From all reports, over 30 songs were written and rehearsed for this album, and the producer and other staff were given the job of picking the songs that went on the final album. That's a massive amount of control for the band to willingly give to others, but perhaps in the long run it allowed them to do the best they could on the songs, and not be so invested in their own contributions such that they fought over their own inclusion.
All members apart from Daniel Löble contributed to the writing process, and the varying array of topics covered by the songs is just as extensive. The fact that many seem to be drawn from actual experiences of the band members would make this a rather personal album for them all. Indeed it comes across as rather urban in places because of it. The music itself seems to come from several different eras of the band, with similarities ranging from the Keepers era to the Dark Ride era to more recent era. The influences as a result provide a colourful conglomeration of songs.
The band itself is firing on all cylinders. The vocals of Andi Deris continue to produce amazing highs and lows, depending on what is required of the song. He can sit comfortably in that middle range for his vocals, but can still hit those high and faster notes when the occasion calls for it. Markus Grosskopf on bass is just as brilliant as ever. Many may not even notice what he does on his instrument underneath everyone else's involvement, but it is quite amazing how much he contributes to the sound Helloween gets with that big flat bottom sound rumbling along, holding each song together. Daniel Löble's drumwork is as precise as ever, and along with Markus keeps the bottom end grounded while the guitarists play their games over the top. Both Sascha Gerstner and the timeless Michael Weikath are still producing wonderful riffs as well as their own solo pieces.

If you only listen to this a few times and take it only on face value, you may well cast this aside as just another failed effort in combining the past and the present by a band that may or may not still have what it takes. But go a little deeper, listen to the album a few more times, and actually listen to the songs and the way they are structured. I think you'll find that there is more to this album than the surface. In fact, the multi-layered part is that each song really is that combination of past loyalty and present mindset. If you are yet to discover Helloween the band this would not be your starting point. But it should definitely be part of that journey if you are a fan of Helloween, or are to become one. It may not be immediately brilliant as those classic and legendary previous albums, but it has the qualities to at least make you believe they can still do the job.

Rating:  Others say that god's a little mad, secretly he'd wear the black, you know.  4/5

839. Helloween / Metal Jukebox. 1999. 4/5

At what point of your career do you think you would have to get to before you decided that recording and releasing an album fully devoted to cover songs is the right thing to do? Although this is basically a rhetorical question, it is perhaps one worth considering. Is it a point where you are so comfortable in your band’s success that you are sure that this decision could either be an excellent upselling move to create further record sales, such as the way Metallica’s “Garage Days Re-revisited" EP had done in 1987, and then “Garage Inc” had been the year prior to this album’s release. Or is it a point that it was the perfect time to rekindle a dwindling interest in the band as a whole, to draw back fans lost due to underperforming albums in recent times, such as perhaps Queensryche’s “Take Cover” compilation in 2007. Or is it a point where you’ve got nothing better to do and you just feel like doing some songs, more or less like Ozzy Osbourne’s “Under Cover” album in 2005. And there are many other examples, for which the reasons why they were done can only be asked of the artists themselves.
In the case of Helloween, their trajectory had been on a steady rise once again having bottomed out in the early 1990’s. On the back of some changes in the band and on two excellent albums in “Master of the Rings” and “The Time of the Oath”, Helloween had gotten back on their feet and were making headway again in the difficult musical times they found themselves in.
One of the interesting things about the recording of the album is that all of the music was recorded by each member separate from the others, in different studios around the world. I would think that was interesting because if it is a covers album, it must have been very difficult to organise how the band wanted each cover version to sound. I mean, you couldn’t just ask each member to go in and decide how they wanted to play each song, and then try and piece it all together! That would have been an impossible task. So there had to have been some conversation on the songs and the way they were going to do their ‘Helloween’ versions, in order to make it sound like they weren’t just playing a note for note version of each of the tracks, before they all went to their different locations and physically recorded each bit by themselves. I’d have thought that recording a covers album would have been a fun thing to do AS A BAND rather than singularly and apart.

The song selection by the band for this album covers the gamut of great hard rock and pop bands of the 1970’s, along with a couple of surprises along the way. And the great part about these versions of these songs is that they are faithful to the originals, in the way that if you know the song it is instantly recognisable, but they have also put a bit of Helloween into them to create a bigger adaption, either through instrumentation or tempo or vocal.
Covering a Beatles song is always fraught with danger, so I’m always of the belief that you should accept them with a grain of salt. And their version here of “All My Loving” with double kick and a faster speed does credit to bringing a different light to the song. On the other hand, the cover of Cream’s “White Room” draws out the heavier tones of the track while retaining the original beautiful groove and feeling of the song. Andi sings this particularly well and the band play it superbly. Another song they do excellently is “Hocus Pocus”, the Focus song that many people would know when they heard even if they didn’t know the title or the original band that played it. The original has been used in commercials and films for decades, and this version more than does it justice.
There were several songs here that I was unfamiliar with when I bought the album, and have since gone back to check out those versions to sit alongside these, and Helloween’s versions are comparable. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s “Faith Healer” is a faithful version here (no pun intended), and “Mexican” by Babe Ruth also is an interesting song. The other song I didn’t know was “Juggernaut” by Frank Marino, and this version is a beauty, played at a great clip that mirrors the title of the track.
That leaves the first five songs on the album, by recognisable artists that would seem to have been highly influential on the band’s sound. “Locomotive Breath” by Jethro Tull is a classic favourite of many metal bands of this era, and Helloween’s version is excellent. One of the interesting versions is their take on Faith No More's “From Out of Nowhere”, given the modern age of the band, which suggests this was chosen because it was a favourite of the band rather than an influence. Their aggressive take on Scorpions “He’s a Woman She’s a Man” is fantastic, as is their over-the-top cover of ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me”, one that sears the veneer off the table. And the last track is David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, a real fan’s closely held interpretation of Bowie’s classic.

Much like I have a saying for live albums – that you should really know by now if you have been listening to this podcast for a while – I have a saying about cover albums. And it is this – albums with cover songs have a shelf life. You will listen to them for a certain time, but eventually you are going to want to go back and listen to the original versions, because in most cases they will still be better or more interesting than the cover versions. And that is true here as well.
What I like about this collection is that there is a variety of artists, many of whom you will not have expected the band to choose, and that they weren’t afraid to go after some iconic classics to perform. The Beatles, ABBA, David Bowie... those three songs could have fallen completely flat if they hadn’t done a good job on them. Fortunately for all, they did.
I bought this on its release, more on a promise I made to myself after missing the original release dates of both “Master of the Rings” and “The Time of the Oath” because of the disappointment I had of “Chameleon”. And while I enjoyed it at the time, it wasn’t what I really wanted, which was a new album by Helloween. This was fine, and fun to listen to, but once it had served its purpose at the time it then went back on the CD shelves. Pretty much until the last couple of weeks. I’m sure I’ve listened t it since, but not in a memorable way.
What I discovered over this short time period since I have been reviewing it for this podcast, I have to say that I’ve found it more enjoyable than I remember. It may well be because I haven’t listened to it for some time, or that it is a novelty again, but it has been fun. The shorter time period availed to me at the moment, with so many episodes to produce, may also help in this matter. It IS a well compiled album, with great cover songs of terrific artists, and you can’t ask for more than that. But it won’t be like an album written by the band. You probably won’t listen to it multiple times, and you probably won’t take it out very often to listen to because of its content. But don’t confuse that with it being an average album. It certainly isn’t that. And for the marketplace in these kinds of albums being produced by bands, it ranks at the higher end of the scale.

728. Helloween / Live in the U.K. 1989. 5/5

There are few bands who could claim to have had such amazing success over the course of their first three full length albums as the band Helloween had in the mid to late part of the 1980’s. Having first released their debut self-titled EP, they followed that up with three truly amazing albums in “Walls of Jericho”, “Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1” and “Keepers of the Seven Keys Part 2”. The band was on a rising tide, a king tide at that, and there appeared that little could be done to stop them.
Riding high on that success, it was decided that Helloween's tour of the UK in 1988 would be recorded in order to produce a live album, something that could preserve for all time the band’s ultimate line up and their live presence at this stage of their career. They had already supported Iron Maiden that year on their Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour, but this was their first headline tour of the UK, and as such was a big move for them. It was also a time of tension within the band and with their record label, Noise. There was discontent with how much the band was being paid, compared to the amount they were bringing in with album sales and merchandise sales, along with the constant touring the band was doing, something that founding member Kai Hansen had tried to address on a number of occasions in the recent two years. The problems with Noise would eventually lead to a lawsuit between the two entities, while the tension within the band itself was also close to reaching boiling point, and the consequences of which were also close to coming to fruition.
Despite all of this, the tour was a great success, with the band playing a full setlist that covered all of their amazing work to this point of their career, and a snapshot of that was to eventually see the light in the form of the live album entitled “Live in the UK”.

This album was taken from recordings over two consecutive nights at the Edinburgh Playhouse in Scotland in November 1988. The seven songs featured here cover the three full studio albums that Helloween had released to this point. And each of them are perfectly brilliant versions of the songs, with the band and its members all firing on all cylinders. Each brought the right attitude and sense of occasion to each song. The sense of fun in the lyrics of "Dr Stein" and "Rise and Fall" come through perfectly in this live setting, with lead vocalist Michael Kiske playing the perfect role. "A Little Time" and "Future World" sound just as good as their studio versions, powerful and forthright in the rhythm section of drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg and bass guitarist Marcus Grosskopf, setting the platform for the star guitarists in Michael Weikath and Kai Hansen to lay down their riffs and solo pieces. The soaring melodic tones of both guitars and Kiske’s vocals during "We Got the Right" send chills down the spine, which is repeated in the closing "How Many Tears", with Kiske wringing every last piece of angst and passion out of the song. It is an amazing version of this already brilliant song, and a version that perhaps has never been bettered. Just brilliant. And of course there is “I Want Out”, the forever fan favourite that again is a perfect rendition here on this live album.
Perhaps the only criticism I can find of this release is that it is far too short. In times where the majority of bands releasing live albums were doing so on double LPs (or by 1989 beginning to be double CDs), in order to capture the entire gig, this seems to be over with just as it is warming up. The actual concerts that this album was recorded at had double this number of songs. I mean, this is terrific, but imagine these seven songs being paired with equally brilliant live versions of the other songs on the setlist - "Eagle Fly Free", “March of Time”, “A Tale That Wasn’t Right”, "Halloween", “Follow the Sign” into "Keeper of the Seven Keys" and "I'm Alive" alongside “Livin’ Ain’t No Crime”. It would truly be a masterpiece. I don't know the reason behind this - perhaps their record company felt a single album was the best way to go (for them) in terms of sales. There are bootlegs of these gigs, of which I have a couple, and they do sound terrific. You can actually hear an excellent one on YouTube if you want. It is totally worth it. The other reason it is a shame we didn't get a full recording is because this is the only official live release with this line up, the "Keepers" line up. Despite this slight falling down, what is presented here is a great live album full of terrific tracks, showcasing the best that this band had to offer. Top shelf.

I have told my tale of my discovery of Helloween on other podcast episodes scattered throughout this internet, but suffice to say that if we hadn’t had our Norwegian exchange student Hans Hoie show up in Year 12 back in 1987, then it could have taken me a lot longer to discover this band than it did. And for that I am forever grateful that he graced our Australian shores that year. And from his influence and cassette tapes recorded for me, I found an amazing band.
I loved this album on its release. Not only is the track list just terrific (despite my already revealed reservations on its relative short length), it showcases just how good this band was live at a time that would have to be considered their peak, at least for this line up. Michael Kiske's vocals soar, in a way that few could say they could equal in a live environment. Mention him in the same breath as Dickinson, Dio and Halford and you won't be denigrating this group. The iconic happy guitars of Kai Hansen and Michael Weikath complement each other beautifully throughout the album. Markus Grosskopf on bass rumbles through each song, his crazily underrated running basslines such a part of what makes their music so wonderful, while Ingo Schwichtenberg's drumming in reality is the complex timekeeping that ties the whole album together while the other subjects go about their business.
I found this at an out-of-the-way record store at Warrawong shopping centre, the name of which I don’t think I ever knew. But they had amazing material there that I couldn’t find at your everyday record store in those days, so it was always worth a visit. And I played this for months at the time, just loving every song, and always wishing it had more songs on it. A double album with the setlist from this concert? It would have rivalled Live After Death! And this is the perfect example of my oft-quoted… quote… that a live album should always be a 5/5 album, because it has the best material recorded in a band’s best environment. On that, “Live in the UK” stands up wondrously well.
Kai Hansen moved on after this tour, in fact quitting the band just a few weeks after this album was recorded, and it was really the end of the first great era of Helloween. The band had lots of struggles over the coming few years as the fallout to this and their record deal, and while they have come out the other side and with the current reunion line up are storming the world once again, this was the end of its greatest era. And while this album is a sterling reminder of their brilliance, it could have been a ripper with a full set.

645. Helloween / Straight Out of Hell. 2013. 4/5

After all of this time I still get excited about a new Helloween album, and mainly because they have rarely let me down when it comes to the finished product. (No, do NOT mention Pink Bubbles Go Ape or Chameleon!). The band promoted it as an extension of their previous album 7 Sinners but with less doom and more positive overall.
What I noticed most in my first couple of listens was that the keyboards are toned down compared to their previous release - they are still there, but just not as prominent - and that this tends more towards heavy metal than the power metal style.

The album kicks off with the single "Nabataea", continuing the band's tradition of the lengthy album opener to drag you in.  The blinding speed of the anthemic "World of War" is reminiscent of any of a number of the best speed metal songs that have been written and performed by Helloween, and really gets the album moving. "Live Now!", while not a bad song, doesn't quite seem to gell with the two opening songs. You tend to bop along with the song rather than bang along with it, if you get my meaning. "Far From the Stars" almost tends to mix pieces of Pink Bubbles Go Ape and Rabbit Don't Come Easy which is no mean feat, but all ends well. "Burning Sun" returns the album to its glory, a great song in all respects, and this is followed by the piano-driven "Waiting for the Thunder", which almost steals the show as one of the best songs on the album. While not losing its identity with the album, it has a great mood and feel that really pushes home the point that this band can do just about anything.

And then, smack bang in the middle of a rocking album comes "Hold Me in Your Arms", the power ballad that not only halts the whole momentum that has been built up by the first half a dozen songs, it just changes the whole listening mood. I'm not suggesting the song is done badly, its just that I can't see the point in moving this rapidly between fast paced action and sit down quietly ballads. This song is a floor-cleaner at the local disco, the song that empties everyone back to their seats. It is certainly no "In the Middle of a Heartbeat".
Following the short and also slightly misplaced "Wanna Be God (Dedicated to Freddie Mercury)", where the lads seem to be doing a Helloween-ish version of "We Will Rock You", the album returns to fourth gear with the title track, "Straight Out of Hell", a classic Helloween happy-guitar song that still has the strength and metal behind it. This is followed by the aptly named "Asshole", a title that immediately can bring together a number of emotions. I mean, how do you approach a song with a title and lyrics like this and do it well without losing credibility? The possibility was there that this song could just become a parody of itself, and even affect the whole album to its detriment if it didn't work. Thankfully that isn't the case. The song is strong enough musically in the first place, and then lyrically it all falls into place, with Andi's marvellously emphatic vocals sealing the song such that it actually ends up lifting the album into a more powerful status.

While to me the back end of the album doesn't quite match the first half, there are still good pieces to it. I think "Years" doesn't quite live up to its predecessors, but both "Make Fire Catch the Fly" and "Church Breaks Down" are good songs, probably deeper lyrically than the actual music around them shows them off to be.
There are two bonus tracks, depending on what format you have purchased, with the rocker "Another Shot of Life" followed by a second version of "Burning Sun" dubbed the Hammond version, as a tribute to Jon Lord of Deep Purple, who had passed away not long before the release of the album.

The fabulous musicianship of the band is in its element on this album, something that is their credit given their length of service. Dani Loble's drumwork is exceptional, pounding through each song at a sometimes exhilarating rate, and the drum sound they have got on this release is fantastic. Sascha Gerstner continues to impress, and his duels with veteran Miki Weikath continue to belt out those happy Helloween guitar tunes that make the band so identifiable. Marcus Grosskopf still gets the most amazing bass riffs out of his guitar, wrapping those enormous hands and fingers into remarkable positions, while Andi Deris has never sounded better than he does here, his vocals still so powerful no matter what range he is expected to sing in.

30 years on and Helloween are still able to produce such a super album as this. Another terrific album from one of the best bands of all time.

633. Helloween / Master of the Rings. 1994. 4.5/5

After the critically panned reviews and sales failure (although they got my money) of the massive musical changes that came from the album “Chameleon”, it was obvious that Helloween had a lot of work to do to regain the faith of their fans and the heavy metal community as a whole. The complete change of direction of that album caused fans (particularly myself) a lot of heartache, and one could only wonder if they could ever return to the heady position they had once held through the second half of the 1980’s decade.
The fallout from all of this was reasonably swift. Drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg, who had not been a part of the writing process for that album, and had memorably reviewed one of their own songs from that album “Windmill” as “Shitmill”, was the first to fall. Increasingly over the years Ingo had faced problems with drugs and alcohol, but also having been diagnosed with schizophrenia he would often refuse or forget to take his medication, all of which led to an increasing deterioration with his mental state and drumming skills live on tour. Michael Weikath had to make the difficult phone call to inform Ingo that until he could get all of his troubles under control, that he could not continue to be a part of Helloween. His tragic passing 18 months following this is still one of the saddest stories in music.
The second to fall was lead vocalist Michael Kiske. The band was now playing to half-full venues, Kiske was concerned about his throat and his singing and stage presence was at odds with what his bandmates were looking for in order to promote the band in the best way. Many of the European dates for the tour to promote “Chameleon” were cancelled through either poor ticket sales or through Kiske’s illness, and it was obvious that there was still much dissention within the band. At the end of 1993, Kiske was fired from Helloween. In the years since, given his outspoken annoyance with heavy metal and his own following of a direction in much softer forms of music in his solo projects, Kiske was lumbered with much of the blame for the direction and performance of the “Pink Bubbles Go Ape” and “Chameleon” albums, a blame that perhaps has truthful elements but is in no way a fair comment.
With two keys members of the band to replace, the trio of Weikath, guitarist Roland Grapow and bass guitarist Marcus Grosskopf also negotiated out of their record contract with EMI and had moved to the smaller yet more comfortable settings of Castle Communications. The band then hired Andi Deris, lead vocalist for the band Pink Cream 69 and also an accomplished song writer. Andi had had passing contact with band over the years, and was a good fit to bring into the band. On drums they picked up Uli Kusch, whose previous gig had been with Gamma Ray. By the time Uli came on board, the song writing had almost been completed, and he was in time to commence the recording of the new album. Both Andi and Uli recorded the album under the notion of being temporary members of the band, a situation that was resolved a month after the album was released, at which point they were appointed as permanent members of Helloween, and thus came the album that signalled the band’s return to the world stage, “Master of the Rings”.

The instrumental intro of "Irritation" kicks off the album, in a callback to the glory days of the band on the Keeper albums, before the raucous beginning of "Sole Survivor" signs on with intent the revival of Helloween from the outset. The superb drum fill from Uli Kusch that opens the album, and his first recording on a Helloween album, is superb. It is a great piece, though it does become the most interesting and difficult piece of drumming he does on the album. No matter, better was to come on albums down the track. The heavy guitar riff from Weikath blasts the album immediately into the right direction. Andi Deris announces his arrival in emphatic fashion, his vocals punching through with passion, and the album is off to a great start. "Where the Rain Grows" is a great follow up, again played at a great pace, and the real "happy" guitars that made Helloween what they were in the late 1980's. You get that old uplifting feeling from these early tunes, a quality that had gone missing on the previous couple of releases. "Why?" comes out as a rather scathing lyrically based song, questioning why it is that if an omnipotent being exists, why does it not stop all of the harm that is occurring in the world. As Andi Deris' first stand alone composition for his new band, it makes quite a statement. The same is true of "Mr Ego (Take Me Down)", another lyrically hard hitting song that is backed up by great music, though on a less vibrant note. At over seven minutes it is progressive not only in style but in length, and perhaps it overstays its welcome a little. What really comes through on these songs is that not only has the band begun to rediscover some of their early mojo, they still have the ability to make a statement without ramming it down your throat. The fact that this song, when released as a single, was dedicated to Michael Kiske, gives you the impression that the scars over that bad blood had not yet healed over.
"Perfect Gentleman" is not only the most surprising song on “Master of the Rings”, it is also quite possibly the best. It mixes heavy guitar with light keyboards, genuine enthusiasm with pointed lyrics, and sung in the blinded belief of the honest opinion. The performance of Andi Deris, playing the part of the 'genuine man' is marvellous and makes the song a gem because of it. You can only imagine that this was a biography of someone the author of the song knew.
Even given the highest quality that the first half of this album provides, the terrific songs keep coming into the second half. "The Game is On", "Secret Alibi" and "Take Me Home" are all good songs that don't quite reach the heights of those earlier, but are more than just average songs.
As someone with an avowed distaste of power ballads on any metal album, it comes as much of a shock to me than anyone else that I love "In the Middle of a Heartbeat", as big a power ballad as you could ever hope to hear. And yet, it is performed so well, and sung with such passion that you cannot help but like it. On an album full of surprises, this was a pleasant one. I did spend a long time when I first got this album trying to find a way to not like this song, and failed. The album then concludes with "Still We Go", another almost biographical song that comments on the rise, and fall, and (hopeful) rise again of the band. Roland Grapow excels in these types of songs, and here he is at his best. Great stuff.

Given my love for the early albums of this bands – nay, not love, obsession – you would expect that I was waiting expectantly on my local record stores doorstep waiting for the door to open on the day that this was released. Well, you would be well mistaken. Because after the release of “Chameleon”, I gave up on Helloween ever recovering, and promptly dismissed them from my mind. Then the terrible years of 1994 and 1995 took two years from my life, and it wasn’t until late in 1996 that I actually returned to my favourite record store, Utopia Records, with a life in balance and money in my account ready to spend on some new albums. On this particular day, and with no knowledge of what had happened to Helloween over the preceding three years, I discovered that in my time away, they had released TWO new studio albums, and also a double live album. With my bad memories of what had been produced on their previous two albums now having dissipated far enough back into the mist of time, I bought all three immediately, and climbed back onto the train with my other purchases for the short trip back to home, anxious to listen to all of the albums I had found. So it wasn’t until 2.5 years AFTER this album was released that I actually heard it for the first time. And it blew me away. Not because it was the best album of all time, but because it was so different from “Chameleon” and the rubbish the band had put forth for that album. With two new members of the band, you could tell immediately that thy had been revitalised, and it was a really joyous moment for me as a fan of the band. Yes, Andi was different from Michael as a vocalist, but it still sounded great. The song had a great basis lyrically, actually trying to say things rather than just waffle about nonsensical matters. And the music was terrific. The great dual guitars from Weikath and Grapow, and that marvellous bass from Marcus. And yes, Uli instead of Ingo, but still terrific. I still remember the first time I listened to this in our little one bedroom house in Erskineville in the inner suburbs of Sydney, and how I felt that day. And of course, the endearing thought that I had wasted 2.5 years NOT having this album, and I could have been listening to it all of that time, all because their last album was so shit. Never mind, I have well and truly made up for it since.
My edition of this album came with a bonus CD, that not only contains Roland's own "Grapowski's Malmsuite 1001" as a tribute to his hero Yngwie Malmsteen, but other excellent B-side material "Can't Fight Your Desire", "Star Invasion" and "Silicon Dreams". It also has cover songs such as "I Stole Your Love" by Kiss, "Cold Sweat" by Thin Lizzy and "Closer to Home" by Grand Funk Railroad. All of these songs appear on the singles released from the album and complement the actual album excellently.
The style of “Master of the Rings” is caught somewhere between an out-and-out power metal release and a progressive rock element, with an assortment of songs that on the whole combine to make a terrific album. Needless to say it is a vast improvement on its predecessor, and though many of the songs have great riffs and terrific drumwork as well as Deris’ awesome vocals, it is different again from anything the band had produced before.
I have been listening to this again over the last two weeks on the loop for this podcast, and I have enjoyed every damn second of it. It was the comeback album the band needed, and it does so perfectly. Nothing can compete with those first albums that the band produced, but this Mark III lineup kicked itself off with an album the equal of another Mark II line up, Deep Purple, had done 20 years earlier. And the good news was, there was plenty more to come.