There’s a reason why I was given this to review. Because before receiving this weighty tome of history-carving metal, I had never knowingly listened to a single Helloween song.
So if you are a fan of the band (and I gather that there are many, and they are dedicated in their cause), I will cut to the chase. You’ve either heard all these songs many times, or chosen not to hear the ones you don’t like. To sum up, there are five songs from Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II, four from each of Walls of Jericho, Master of Rings and Helloween, three each from Seven Keys I, Time of the Oath and Straight out of Hell, two from Pink Bubbles go Ape, Better than Raw, Dark Ride, Seven Keys Legacy, Gambling With the Devil, 7 Sinners and God Given Right, and One each from Chameleon and Rabbit Don’t Come Easy. Fans, that is all you need to know. There are no rarities, territory-specific releases or live versions.
However, if, like me, you are new to the band, but enjoy metal with a prefix of POWER, read on for a discovery.
If I hadn’t been so obsessed by the Ramones, Hoodoo Gurus, Motörhead and, err, Pat Benatar in the late 1980s (and in my mid-teen wisdom I wasn’t so snobbish about metal in general), I may have become a firm Helloween fan from the start. Sliding doors and all that.
My gateway band into the world of power metal was Manowar (thanks to my former housemate Alex) and whatever you think of the animal-skin-wearing veterans, their tunes sure do stick in your head. Indeed, after years of rumination, I have come to the conclusion that the sub-genre rules. It is the most fun, catchiest, major-key-heavy facet of metal, even if it does lean on fantasy a little too much (and in Manowar’s case, hyper masculinity, which is hilarious. If you don’t believe me, try and listen to ‘All Men Play on Ten’ with a straight face).
So I didn’t know there was a massive pumpkin-shaped hole in my musical knowledge until the year 2025, which is the 40th anniversary of Helloween.
And to celebrate this milestone, they have released an anthology seemingly tailor-made for people like me. There are 42 songs on March of Time (including the excellent ‘March of Time’ from Seven Keys II) and every one of them is available on one of their 16 albums. There’s not even a single cover, even though they put out a whole album of them.
But to a newbie like me, this album is like discovering a whole new world. Imagine my wide-eyed joy when I first heard the opening track, Walls of Jericho’s ‘Ride the Sky’, with its pummelling speed-metal velocity and blood-curdling scream that almost certainly influenced Slayer screamer Tom Araya’s introductory wail on ‘Angel of Death’ a year later. It is scarcely believable that this came out in 1985.
It is quite a first encounter with Helloween, I have to admit. And there are other points in the early parts of the anthology where I think I’ve heard something before, but of course is the original from which others got inspiration. One such passage is the introduction to ‘Halloween’, one of three 10-minute-plus epics. It is almost note-for-note the same as ‘The Abominable Dr Phibes’ from the Misfits’ American Psycho. ‘Halloween’ was recorded about 10 years before The Misfits’ song.
By ‘How Many Tears’ I am hooked on this speed metal before speed metal even existed. I cannot overstate how good the songs from Helloween’s first three albums appear to be, from this sample.
The songs are broadly in chronological order – the only song out of sequence is ‘Eagle Fly Free’ from Seven Keys II, which comes before ‘Halloween’ off Keys I, presumably for vinyl continuity purposes (this omnibus comes as five vinyl LPs or three CDs, each with bonus trinkets like patches).
And given that the songs appear in date order, you can hear the peaks and troughs of the band’s career. I will definitely dive further into the debut and the first two Seven Keys albums, but from this collection I got the distinct impression the band lost their way a little bit in the 1990s. The internet confirmed my suspicions.
It may come as a surprise to fans of the band that there are two offerings off Pink Bubbles Go Ape (‘Kids of the Century’ and ‘Number One’, which are, as I understand, the least offensive numbers on that album – and actually sound OK in the context of this compendium). And the one from Chameleon, the album which one critic said was “the most WTF record in metal” and which heralded the end of Michael Kiske’s stint as vocalist, is… bland. It’s a ballad called ‘Windmill’ and it sounds like a theme tune to a po-faced TV series that never got past the pilot.
Thankfully Andi Deris and his iron lungs stepped in to bring back the double-kick beats and deliver the catchy choruses. Although it must be said, it sounds like it took a few albums before Helloween really rediscovered their mojo. Mind you, almost every metal band that started in the 1980s suffered an existential crisis after the early-90s arrival of grunge and its plaid-shirted attitude. And it is worth mentioning that there was a number of other line-up changes throughout Helloween’s near half-century of existence, some out of artistic differences, some out of tragedy.
But on the evidence of the songs on the final three LPs, when Helloween got the magic back, it did not leave them, barring the occasional mis-step (a few from Master of Rings and God Given Right wouldn’t have been missed from this collection, for example).
Some of the strongest songs on this collection are from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Like ‘As Long as I Fall’ from 2007’s Gambling With the Devil, or ‘If I could Fly’ from Dark Ride seven years earlier. Two better rousing, mid-tempo lung-busters you would struggle to find anywhere else in metal – especially from a band that would have celebrated its 15th and 20th anniversary around the time of each song’s release.
And the title track from Straight out of Hell is another that deserves to go on any greatest ever power metal playlists. It is quintessential major-key metal, complete with keyboards and cheese. It’s awesome.
I could go on about how metacular the bulk of the other songs are, but if you are familiar with the band you will already know this and if you are new to them, then I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Except I will say this: ‘Are You Metal?’ off 2010’s 7 Sinners is an absolute winner.
And the three lengthy epic songs are incredible. There is the aforementioned ‘Halloween’, which has a chorus which won’t leave your head, enough time signature changes to satisfy even the most ardent of chin-strokers and some incredible solos. And ‘Keeper of the Seven Keys’, off the Part II album, is basically the blueprint for modern power metal. It is massive. Like, huge. To think that both these songs came out before 1990 is mind-blowing.
And as if to prove that they still have it in them, the final song on the compilation is ‘Skyfall’ from 2021’s Helloween, when Kiske and original vocalist and guitarist Kai Hansen had rejoined the band to make it a septuplet. As an aside, Kiske had kept himself busy with solo records and an appearance on Marius Danielsen’s excellent power-metal opera The Legend of Valley Doom, which I now know is heavily influenced by Helloween.
‘Skyfall’ starts with a huge barre chord and Kiske proclaiming ‘I fell from the sky, so don’t ask me why, I am feeling so down’, before launching into a twelve-minute tale of an alien, well, falling from the sky. It is one of the compendium’s highlights – and it shows that even after 40 years, these pumpkins are not done yet.
So if, like me, you have never heard Helloween before but like your metal fast, epic and powerful, jump in, you’ll love this. And if you already know the band, you may get a nice surprise revisiting songs from long-forgotten albums. Helloween, you have made a fan out of me.
