Helloween's Reviews

Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 1

(Average Rating: 8.42 out of 10)

Strange, but still good.

(Rated this album with 6 out of 10)
Reviewed by stevexxlt2 from United States

I really don't know how to describe this album, and Helloween's style overall. These songs are far too melodic and catchy to be called "speed metal," but too heavy and fast to be called "pop metal." Helloween are a very interesting band in that respect. The closest comparison I can draw to a more well-know metal album is Judas Priest's "Turbo" with a slightly more thrashy feel, but considering how many people hate "Turbo," that's probably not fair.

The songs I like on this album - "A Little Time," "Future World," "Twilight of the Gods," and "I'm Alive" - are very good songs, and I can certainly see how Helloween laid the foundation of European power metal with this album. If this were an EP consisting of just those 4 songs, I'd give it 5 stars. Unfortunately, the album opener and closer are non-songs that clock in at around one minute each, wasting 2 perfectly good tracks. The song "Halloween" would be a pretty good epic except for one thing: the reference to Charlie Brown comics completely ruins the entire song for me. If you can get past that, then this album is definitely worth a listen. But to put it in perspective, this is an album with 7 tracks, 5 of which are songs, 4 of which are good. Make of that what you will, and also check out Kai Hansen's other band, Gamma Ray.

Buy this album on Amazon at $9.98