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 reinforced this, was a relief. Whatever the aberrations were 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. To this end, the band returned to the studio in mid-to-late 1995 to craft their next edition. It had come on the back of the tragic news that their former and founding drummer Ingo had committed suicide in March of 1995, jumping in front of a train. Their new album would eventually be dedicated to his memory. With Deris and Kusch now acknowledged full members of the band, it was left to the five members to come up with an album that not only adequately followed up the renewed success of their previous album, but could push them back to their former position as one of the leaders of European heavy metal. The question was, could they do it? It was a question that only “The Time of the Oath” could answer.
In any fair appraisal of the album, it should be noted that the stylistic flourishes do differ within the framework of the record, and that while there is a fraternal bond between “Master of the Rings” and “The Time of the Oath” there are differences in the overall output.
The opening four songs on the album give it the mastery push that will draw in fans of the album new and old. They mirror the excellence of the best of the previous album. The opening of "We Burn" opens with faux poor whistling before bursting in hard and fast, leaving nothing to the imagination. The drums and bass line tear along, dragging the two guitars along with them. This is then extenuated into the dual solo spots where the speed of the track intensifies as a result. With the tempo racing at the very top speed that the band would operate at, it is Andi Deris’s vocals that expound the enthusiasm of the track here as well, and the enthusiasm is contagious. It’s a more than solid opening to the album, that is then followed by "Steel Tormentor", which is one of my favourite songs of this era of the band. This is classic Michael Weikath musically, great riff, tempo charging, and terrific combnation of the guitars and bass to fuse together. Matched with appropriate lyrics from Andi, and the song is a car driving delight, one made for listening to while cruising along the highway with the arm out the window. Fabulous. Uli's brilliant drumming throughout is a star attraction, perfectly matching the urgency that the song requires. "Wake Up the Mountain" follows, and showcases the best of Uli’s songwriting. It features the superb drive underneath by the drums and bass that Uli always writes well, and that he and Marcus perform with precision. The harmony vocals brighten the song in the best Helloween traditions, offering plenty of opportunity to sing along. The final of the quartet is "Power", another great example of Weikath’s song writing. Te guitars from Weikath and Roland on this track bring back the ‘happy guitars’ sound that was always prominent in the early years of the band, and is driven by Andi’s terrific vocal performance that lifts everything above the norm. This opening burst on the album remains fantastic all these years later.
In some ways, 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 or the album bad, just different. Or perhaps I’m just indifferent. Much of the mood looks for something closer to the reflective, though not quite as bad as balladish, and also look to draw upon 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 change in style is exacerbated by "Before the War" because it 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. It’s just a shame that it has had a bit of the wind taken out of the album by the previous track. Of course, the previous track was also released as a single so... you know...
"A Million to One" is an interesting song, because it has a slight deviation to the 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. While this song does have a change in style from the opening barrage on this album it actually still fits in very nicely. "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. Both “A Million to One” and “Anything My Mama Don’t Like” show what a great songwriting combination Andi Deris and Uli Kusch make, offering differences from what would be considered a typical Helloween track, and yet it fits within the framework of their version of the band.
Michi draws back from his early roots to offer us "Kings Will Be Kings" which charges along at a good clip as well, rarely pausing for breath. The rollicking rhythm and hard riffing guitars drive the song onwards, and is a more seriously toned song that he usually writes, but it does have those happy melodic guitars in the middle of the song to counter any thoughts that this isn’t a Helloween song.
The final three songs on the album are where some may perceive that problems lie. "Mission Motherland" is a nine-minute epic which mixes a whole conglomerate of different styles and tempos within the song, and it is perhaps arguable that it doesn’t quite work here. Their epics in the past have always been outstanding, retaining the interest of the listener from start to finish. But it is possible that this one does lose interest along the way. Yes, the musicianship is still terrific, but the structure and output are not as hugely fulfilling as Michi’s songs usually are. This is followed by "If I Knew" which 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. The soaring guitars, the soaring vocals, the mid to slow tempo, the clear guitars along the way. You know the drill. These two songs, along with "Forever and One (Neverland)" are the outliers of the album. The album then concludes with the title track "The Time of the Oath", a track that has its moments. This is Roland’s sole writing credit on the album – for the music only – and the very heavy riff and slow grunging tempo throughout offers a completely different sound to what has come before it on the album. So perhaps it is not unusual given it is Roland’s only offering. It acts as the Helloween long epic closer, and almost appears to have been written and performed with that very thought in mind. And it is a terrifically moody way to do so. When it has been played live it sounds great. It just sounds a little out of place here compared to the entire rest of the album.
Back in 1993, a few months after I got married, I remember clearly buying Helloween’s new album “Chameleon” with great excitement, despite money being extremely tight for two newlyweds. I wore a reasonable amount of abuse from my lovely wife at the time for spending money that we plainly did not have on an album, but I tried to explain that this was Helloween, and I simply couldn’t do without it. As most of you listening now will realise, the album is rubbish, I could CERTAINLY have done without it, and the abuse I received was well warranted. So bad was this album, that I swore off Helloween from that point, vowing that they were done and that I could move on from them.
Flash forward to 1997, and on a trip to my most frequented record store Utopia Records in Sydney, I am browsing the CD cabinets, and come across the band Helloween. And I see that there is not just one album there that I have no knowledge of, but two! And, a live album as well! And despite the knowledge that the last album I owned of them was a basket case, I suddenly get all excited about hearing new Helloween material, that just HAS to be better than what I last listened to. So I buy all three albums (along with Gamma Ray’s ‘Land of the Free’ and ‘Alive ‘95’ - so you can see that it was a big day!), and I take the train back home to where I was living at the time near Newtown, frantically unwrapping CDs to read all about these new albums I have just purchased. And it was here, before I even got home, that I discovered that Helloween had two new members, and that rings and keepers appeared all over the album artworks. Over the next couple of days I listened to all five of those albums, and they all went into the rotation for the next few weeks. Within this lay some of the problem of where this album falls for me. Because I was listening to all five at the same time, and because there were two Helloween albums, along with a live album that had songs off both album in the mix as well, it was an interesting time trying to work out exactly how I felt about each. Obviously for this review, how I felt about “The Time of the Oath”. I was not only weighing up how I felt about each of these Helloween albums with a lead vocalist who WASN’T Michael Kiske, but also trying to concentrate on Helloween when the absolute utter greatness of Gamma Ray’s “Land of the Free” was taking all of my available listening time. There was also the requirement to balance the live versions of the songs from this album that were on “High Live”, which was recorded on the tour to promote this album and thus had six of the songs from it.
Long story short – I really enjoyed this album and the previous one. For me listening to both of those albums at the same time, I thought Andi Deris slotted straight into the band brilliantly, as did Uli Kusch on drums. All of my fears of the band dissolving into a sad relic of itself proved to be unfounded, and this album proved it along with “Master of the Rings”. And yes, it was a different Helloween from that original band formation, but it was still a Helloween worth listening to.
Today, the Pumpkins United formation of the band lives on, though I doubt I will ever get a chance to see them live. I still listen to this album, and have had my CD bought on that fateful day back in 1997 back on my stereo this week, and it has been as enjoyable as it always is. You will have picked up from my review that a couple of the songs may not be my absolute favourites, but that really doesn’t affect my listening of the album at any stage. The energy and freshness of the album remains, along with the exuberance especially of Andi Deris.
Overall Helloween had 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 continued to point towards a bright future. The albums going forward did see a variance in output, but given they are still out there doing their thing it is obvious that this era of the band managed to revive their fortunes.
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