CD Odyssey Disc 590: Helloween

Welcome to Super Bowl Sunday!  Super Bowl Sunday is like Christmas for massive football fans like me. Of course, being a Dolphins fan, the Super Bowl is like Christmas where I don’t get any gifts, but it is still nice watching other people open theirs. Good luck, Seahawks fans!

Disc 590 is….Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part 1

Artist: Helloween

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover? If this cover is wrong I don’t want to be right.  A wizard with the universe for a face guards the seven keys.  Behind him some goblins conspire on how to steal them (I don’t like their chances against a dude with a universe for a face).

Also of note is the castle, which on MLS would probably be listed as “a bit drafty, but has a great view.”

How I Came To Know It: I was watching the Sam Dunn documentary miniseries “Metal Evolution” and one of the episodes was on power metal; a genre basically invented by Helloween.  I had heard of Helloween as a kid, but never thought to buy an album, but after “Metal Evolution” gave me a bit of a taste I thought they deserved more attention than I’d given them in the past.  I also discovered the Finnish band “Nightwish” on the same episode, but I’ll talk about that when I roll it.

How It Stacks Up:  Despite this only being “Part 1,” this is the only Helloween album I have, so it can’t really stack up.  I’m told it is considered a classic, but I’m really not qualified to say.

Rating:  3 stars

Like a young Ricky Bobby, the members of Helloween no doubt grew up, guitars in hand, telling their parents, “I want to play faster!” And so power metal was born.

It was born in Germany, and the influence of the Scorpions is very evident in their music, both in vocal style and in how the melodies are constructed.  Their sound is also very reminiscent of Iron Maiden, with an operatic quality and songs about grand and fantastical topics.

Fortunately lead vocalist Michael Kiske has the chops to sing in this demanding style and his vocals soar across the guitars.  There are not one, but two ‘lead’ guitars (this seems to be a thing with power metal) in Kai Hansen and Michael Weikath.

As noted above, the goal of the power metal guitar player is to play faster, and Hansen and Weikath are up to the challenge.  Getting deep emotion out of the instrument is not important – just play as fast as hell.  If the melody doesn’t call for a frantic series of chord changes that’s OK, just play a ton of individual notes within each chord.

Listening to this had a dual effect on me.  On the one hand, it seemed like a silly parlour trick, particularly when they occasionally slow down and you don’t hear any great emotional content enter the playing.  On the other hand, if you throw yourself into the experience there is no denying the energy that is created with all that speedy, precise playing. It gets the blood flowing.

All that is good and bad about these guys is on display on “Halloween.”  The virtuoso playing style is there, and the chorus has Kiske shrieking out “Ahh…it’s Halloween!” with gusto.  But the song goes on for over 13 minutes, and finds time for three guitar solos, only one of which is very good. Most of the solos feel like the boys are just walking up and down the scales – albeit very quickly.

Also lyrically, I’m not sure singing about the Great Pumpkin is particularly scary:

“Someone’s sitting in a field

Never giving yield

Sitting there with gleaming eyes

Waiting for big pumpkin to arise

Bad luck if you get a stone

Like the good old Charlie Brown

You think Linus could be right

The kids will say it’s just a stupid lie.”

Lyrics like that had me wishing that Kiske sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher.  That way I wouldn’t be able to understand him.  Sadly, his voice is every bit as precise as all the guitar playing.

This album is a re-issue with great sound quality, but unfortunately they’ve added twenty minutes worth of extra tracks which I could have lived without.  The one exception to that is the video edit for “Halloween” – a much more tasteful five minutes in length and they even cut the ridiculous Great Pumpkin lyrics out entirely.

I enjoyed this record, but I also found myself laughing at it a bit.  For some reason these guys don’t have the same gravitas that Iron Maiden manages to generate with similar material. Nevertheless, I still liked it, and maybe I’ll even decide to see how the story ends in “Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part 2.”

Best tracks: I’m Alive, Future World, Halloween (video edit)