- HELLOWEEN
- WALLS OF JERICHO
- KEEPER OF THE SEVEN KEYS, PART 1
- KEEPER OF THE SEVEN KEYS, PART 2
For those of you who aren't familiar with this band it should be sufficient to say that they're a two guitar outfit which hails from Hamburg, and as for everything else their music speaks for itself. Quite honestly you couldn't really pinpoint much of Helloween's future trademarks on this particular effort, but you can however see a great power metal band emerging on the scene. At this point the band's main characteristics - the keyboards, are used only sparingly and you don't have that symphonic feel that they’ve acquired later on. Since the music is exceptionally heavy and more menacing than expected it's easy to see why Helloween was then marked as a darker version of Iron Maiden, although the band quickly dropped such connotations and went for a more crowd-friendly sound. I'd even dare to say that the music on this 27 minutes long EP is unmistakably thrashy and much less poppy than the standard Helloween material. The vocals are handled by one of the two guitar players, Kai Hansen, who's really not up to the task with his voice being rough and unpolished so he often ends up screeching like some comic version of Nazareth's Dan McCafferty. And finally, the lyrical aspect of the album isn't groundbreaking in any way since it tackles the typical dungeons&dragons themes which were already extensively covered by Dio and Iron Maiden. Ah well, even if it's not especially smart at least it's remarkably entertaining.
"Starlight" smashes right from the start and is followed by another acknowledged bruiser called "Murderer". Both are rather straightforward thrash metal with the double guitar assault shooting off numerous rapid riffs all over the place, thusly establishing a certain (for this band uncharacteristic) gritty sound. Unfortunately, "Warrior" doesn't instantly blow me away but that's probably just because of the obvious similarities between these tracks. However "Victim Of Fate" is their first stab at six-minute epics that possesses lots of speedy lines throughout, the chorus is infectious but the most glaring part is the slower menacing interlude. The gruffer vocal performance on this song works out well, although I could carry on without hearing that oh-so-dated devilish laugh. Ah well, at least the bluesy guitar solo really rocks. Elsewhere the solid metal fare continues with "Cry For Freedom" which is equally strong opening with some acoustic licks and going steady from there on, building up the tensions with moody chanting and chilling guitar work. In summation, I must say that this EP surely isn't the best starting point for Helloween since much of it looks very deceiving when compared to their classic Kiske-era, but it is a strong release nevertheless.
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More of the same, it seems. At this point the sound haven’t change a bit and we're once again treated with rather nasty thrash metal (well, it is pretty venomous considering the year of its release), which this time features some fairly improved vocal work, too. Kai Hensen finally gets his voice in order and while I still don't particularly enjoy it at least he dropped the McCafferty tactic completely and opted for a more Halford-esque sound getting on a few very efficient hiiiiiigh screams. Then you have your ripping and relatively intricate guitar work to boast, with the guys playing energetic dual leads and blurting out monstrous lightning-speed riffage, but this time the production helps them out somewhat even if it's still noticeably underproduced. There's a fair share of distortion here and the overall feel is heavier than on the next album, which works out just fine for me. Let's talk about the songs then. The opener "Walls Of Jericho" is actually a brief instrumental featuring, you've guessed it, cheesy keyboards pretending to be trumpets. Following it is your average six-minute epic "Ride The Sky" which is, in fact, all but average, especially since it opens with a classy high-pitched scream worthy of Rob Halford himself. And the song... oh my.... what a cool song! I mean, really, what more could you ask for? It's a fast- paced number with an outstanding knack for melody and even Hensen's vocals which are fueled by some mighty fine harmonies fit in perfectly (and I do mean, PERFECTLY). This particular song is way better than anything off the debut and it's only fitting they still play it live.
Unfortunately the things go downhill with "Reptile" which is a throwaway of sorts although it’s neat in its venomous attitude. But regardless of that track we still reach some higher ground with solid metallic blasts that are both aggressive and intelligent like “Guardians” (featuring awesome high-pitched screams), “Phantoms Of Death” (with cool restrained keyboards), "Metal Invaders" and my second favorite song here, “How Many Tears”. That one’s a really neat seven-minute epic that frequently shifts from fast to slow sections, and while it is raw it’s still attractive in its own way, with Halford-like vocals and all. The only considerable letdowns are the rather primitive metal celebrations like “Heavy Metal (Is The Law)” which functions as a funny ode to the genre but leaves no deeper impact, and occasional lapses into totally moronic “dungeons&dragons” imagery presented in the unintentionally hilarious number “Gorgar”. Musically both tracks are pretty solid but I wont tolerate mindless excursions in sludgy lyrical cheese such as “Gorgar will eat you, Gorgar – man you’ll never win” without a decent reason (which obviously isn’t supplied here). Apart from these two tracks this is a very solid offering indeed, although a bit more emphasis on the word melody wouldn’t have hurt anyone. I don't think it's an essential listen for anyone except for maybe Helloween fans that would like to see how their favorite group started out. Actually, this is also the last place where you could listen to the old Helloween sound as the band's big breakthrough was already near and big changes were about to happen. It's a solid little record, all in all.
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Yup, this is where Helloween's classic sound first appears, and, not surprisingly, this was also the band's first album with Michael Kiske, by now a legendary singer on the German scene – a man who, between other things, had influenced countless power metal singers that were to follow. Here, he certainly gives a new flavour to the band, with his soaring vocals adding a majestic feel to some of the songs – which is something that lead guitarist Kai Hansen, who handled the vocals up to that point, couldn't do. Pretty much all of the thrash influences from the previous album, «Walls Of Jericho», had vanished as well, leaving behind something that would be soon called German power metal, even if it wasn't fully morphed at this point. What's very interesting about this album is that Helloween's main flaw is not, at least not right now, in writing a few stunning songs and surrounding them with filler material. Instead, what they did is recorded a bunch of very decent songs, but apart from the thirteen minute epic 'Halloween', no great ones! All right, the lead-off track 'I'm Alive' is damn good, but the rest just kinda falls flat. They're all solid in their own right, I guess, but compare these songs to the second part and they suddenly sound a lot weaker. Both 'A Little Time' and 'Twilight Of The Gods' are strong, relatively fast entries, but I can't for the life of me remember how that so-called classic ‘A Tale That Wasn't Right' sounds like! Not good, kind sir.
Of course, then there's that immortal Helloween staple 'Future World' which has some purely atrocious vocals – definitively not one of Kiske's most shining moments. Thankfully, Kiske does recover just in time to give a splendid performance on that grand thirteen-minute masterpiece, 'Halloween'. Even if the rest of this album sucked (and it doesn't), this song would be more than enough to elevate Helloween to their legendary position among German power bands. Admittedly, 'Halloween', as a concept, is not that original - Iron Maiden had already recorded their lengthy 'Rime Of The Ancient Mariner' epic so it seems that Helloween were just following the footsteps of their obvious mentors. That's true. But so what? Helloween's greatness lies in the fact that they did it a lot better! It's the same Maiden approach - fast rousing parts mixed with slower, more emotion-filled sections – but it's not just that! This actually works! It's exciting, it shifts and turns, goes up and down, constantly changes - and in the end - it's just a much more enjoyable experience than that boring «poetic» pretentiousness of 'Rime Of The Ancient Mariner'.
I've said right at the beginning that this album's the birth place of Helloween's sound, but what I didn't mention is that this and the following album were actually supposed to be released together as a double album. That fell through, however, when Helloween's plan was shot down by their record company who decided to put them out separately. It's a funny thing though, cause whoever had the last word about the choice of material that was to be included on «Part 1», either wanted the band appear like they're progressing as they go along so they released the worse songs first, or the band actually did improve somewhat and polished the other songs for the impending release of «Part 2». Everything that Helloween wanted to accomplish on this album, they eventually did accomplish on «Part 2», but for some reason or another, may it be unfocused songwriting or the lack of chops, they just couldn't do it here. Because of all this I was debating with myself if I should give «Part 1» a lower rating, perhaps 7.5 or maybe even 7, but due to its historic importance I backed off. Except for that, for an album released sixteen years ago it has aged well – it's not quintessential – but not everything can be.
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Well, wouldn't you know it, it turns out that Helloween's "Keeper Of The Seven Keys - Part 2" is actually not that much of an exceptional album - but it does have the best song they've ever recorded, the pretentious thirteen minute epic title track. Now I don't know many metalheads that don't know this song (at least European metalheads), but I do see a lot of them doing the most common mistake, taking the rest of this album and elevating it on the status that rivals this ripping, but over-the-top masterpiece of a title track. Is that really such a mistake? In a way, yes. There's certainly plenty of very good songs here - some even downright fantastic – but, all things considered, the whole album doesn't live up to the promises of the title track. Some songs are, in fact, nothing short of filler pieces. Take the supposed classic 'Dr. Stein' for example. Even if I ignore the dumber-than-thou lyricism dealing with cloning of rock stars, politicians and suchlike public figures it still leaves me with... okay, granted, with a cool vocal melody, but also with a noticeable rip-off of Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid'! Now even though you could hardly see the similarities between the two if you're listening Sabbath's classic in its mellower studio version you can surely hear it on the new, more metallized live rendition off "Reunion". The opening riffs to 'Dr. Stein' sound almost exactly like a complete clone of those from 'Paranoid' and even the vocal melody is so deceiving that every time I put 'Dr. Stein' on I expect to hear Ozzy singing "finished with my woman cause she couldn't help me with my mind....". That never happens, though, but whenever I hear Kiske on this track I can't help but think that Ozzy would actually fit in much better. And you know, that was supposed to be another classic off the album which is saying an awful lot, actually.
Also of note is that the third well-known song off this record, 'I Want Out', isn't anything more than a perfectly average and rather derivative pop song which could have been written by any generic hair metal act of the era, Poison and Motley Crue included. So let's just suppose I got into Helloween over some "best of" compilation that contains these two songs and that, obviously, wouldn't prompt me to buy this album considering how generic and dated they sound, although that would prove to be a mistake as the rest of this offering is accidentally much superior to them. Some would say that Helloween doesn't really rank up there with its biggest influences Maiden and Priest, but for some reason at this point in time I far prefer them to the Maidenites. Perhaps it's because Maiden have recorded one plodding brontosaurus too many by now so I'm getting really bored of their semi-progressive wanking, but that's not important anyway. Further more, I suppose I didn't make mention of it just yet, but I really don't have a clue why is Michael Kiske so often compared to Bruce Dickinson. I do get the Geoff Tate comparisons, as I clearly remember Tate's impressing, but all-too-high singing on the likes of 'Queen Of The Reich'. Dickinson on the other hand never sang in such a high-pitched manner - his wails were astoundingly powerful, but ear-splitting screams they weren't. However, the singers that really did influence Kiske were, like I've said earlier, Rob Halford, but also the Scorpions' head blurter Klaus Meine whose influence is also present, only somewhat less obvious.
Back to the songs then - for better or for worse. Well, 'Invitation' is a brief forgettable instrumental opener, not really on par with the far more powerful 'Initiation' off the first album, but it does work well when it's coupled with the dark symphonic force of 'Eagle Fly Free', which is accidentally my second favourite song here. I guess this song doesn't need much introduction since it is a fan favourite so I presume that makes it the fourth classic of the album. Sadly enough, since 'Eagle Fly Free' is so exceptionally anthemic and driven by blazing guitar work, not to mention a typical Priest-like riff, it sets the standard that the rest of the album simply can't follow, apart from the title track any maybe a few others. Rockers like 'Rise And Fall', 'We Got The Right' and the above-mentioned 'Dr. Stein', while musically perfectly solid, with strong guitar work and pretty unique melodic vocals, they're plagued with some unforgivable lyrical excesses. Sometimes Helloween do get right on all counts, and as a result 'You Always Walk Alone', 'March Of Time' and 'Save Us' all sound great, if not excellent, sometimes even rivalling 'Eagle Fly Free'. In a way this album does not rely on pure power as its immediate predecessor did - there seems to be a more atmospheric approach at work here – but, unfortunately, the whole album is still not quite as strong as one would like. For those interested in the German power metal this should probably be a holy grail of sorts, even if I personally think that a lot of the band's worthy followers on today's scene are releasing records that are superior to this one. Regardless, due to its historic value this album will still get an obscenely high rating of 8.5, so if you have a knack for Helloween's brand of «happy» metal and enough willingness to explore power metal's history, this should be your very first stop.
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