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.
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