Helloween & Gamma Ray

I know, i know. That's why i love coming to these forums and sharing my opinions, i love bouncing them off other music fans. I'm a pretty big Dream Theater fan, buy my opinions and preferences within their music boggles the minds of most DT fans. I'm also a Helloween fans that prefers Deris way way more to Kiske. So that says a lot right there.

Dark Ride is my favorite album and I absolutely love Escalation 666, actually i love all the songs including the Weiki songs despite the fact their very out of place. The production and downtuned guitars helped his 2 songs be even better. I'v heard people compare recent stuff like 7 Sinners and Gambling to Dark Ride, but I don't exactly see it. The guitars are heavy on these albums, but don't have that same Dark and lowtuned feeling to them. There will never be another Dark Ride. I really wonder what their next album would have been if Grapow and Uli had stayed. I think it may have resulted in a really inconsistent album. Maybe not Chameleon-like, but full off songs like The Tune, and then songs like Escalation 666. Half Dark Ride, half Rabbits.
 
NotePad said:
I know, i know. That's why i love coming to these forums and sharing my opinions, i love bouncing them off other music fans. I'm a pretty big Dream Theater fan, buy my opinions and preferences within their music boggles the minds of most DT fans. I'm also a Helloween fans that prefers Deris way way more to Kiske. So that says a lot right there.
Click to expand...
Do you also think 'St. Anger' is a great album? :D
 
I prefer Deris era over Kiske era too, 'cause Deris has twice as many albums and isn't a false like Kiske :P
 
Kiske left Helloween, talked shit about metal for a long time, yet now he ate his words and plays metal festivals with Unisonic.
 
Black Wizard....I am a big fan of St. Anger. Really. I love it, love the sound. It's not anything like me trying to go against the general popular opinion, these are just the things i really enjoy.

And is Unisonic really metal? I'v heard it's more Hard Rock than metal. Is it anything like Place Vendome's music?

There's something else I'v been trying to get other peoples views on, but can't seem to get people to address. I'v been watching more recent Helloween performances, including the 3 Continents DVD they did. I'v noticed that Sascha Gerstners seems to play waaaaay more solos then Weiki. Not just solos, but also song intro's and harmonies etc. Often Sascha will play an solo, then him an weiki will play a double harmony together, then weiki will go back to the background and play rhythm or whatever. Seems like the vast majority of the great guitar parts and solos are played by Sascha, from what i can tell from watching their live stuff. Is this really the way it is, or am i wrong? Even on lots of the songs Weiki is credit with writing himself, this seems the case.
 
NotePad said:
yea, it's odd. I'd assume they would have a better grasp on english by now. .
Click to expand...

It is very much on purposes and they have a very good handle of English. They are merely trying to be clever, like Hammerfall with "Tomorrow Never Comes." Clever enough to make 3rd graders ponder their life, but it is funny/silly to everyone else. They have always had "off" or silly titles. Hell, they named an album, "Pink Bubbles go Ape!"
 
I don't believe it's always on purpose. And I'm only talking about Helloween here, i don't have many thoughts regarding this and other bands. Rabbit Don't Come Easy was on purpose, and was odd, I'm still not entirely sure on their reason for that one. What was it again, anyone know?
 
Iv been listening to Straight Out of Hell again recently, after a break. I really do enjoy Asshole, the title and the fact that Asshole is in the chorus made me immediately think negatively of it, but now I really can say it's a great song, and it's great to see Helloween doing something like that. The guitars and riffs have somewhat of a heavy Thrash or 'groove' metal style to it (not sure what groove metal is, but iv heard JPs Jugulator described as such). And the title track is so great, maybe my favorite, it has such a classic Helloween Power Metal sound to it. I love how they continue to integrate that classic Helloween sound into their newer stuff, the only other band I'v heard that has this same classic sound is Edguy, their earlier records, which are obviously very Hellowen influenced. Other then that, no one does it like the originals!
 
Unisonic are releasing a new album on July 25th and on May 23rd they're releasing an EP called 'For the Kingdom' which has two new tracks (one of which is exclusive to the EP) and four live tracks.
 
I'v heard samples from the new Unisonic. There does seem to be somewhat of a power metal style to it. Except still with the very generic sound of the first Unisonic album...
 
Of for fuck's sake, stop auto tuning Kiske so blatantly obvious. Leave the few bum notes alone. A couple of flat notes never killed anybody.
 
Extremely common these days. You have to fix eeeevery mistake. So what, a few flat notes here and there? Leave it the fuck be or if possible, have Kiske redo those lines.

Sebastian Bach's tuned a bit here and there as well Although he's completely oblivious to the fact. He has no idea that his flat notes are being fixed. Check out An Absence of Empathy from 2005 or so for some really shitty tuning (although, modern tuners are better than they were 9 years ago)!

Dave Grohl has the perfect approach to tuning (and I'm paraphrasing): "And these days you put auto tune on everything. And I'm like, get that fucking thing off my vocal track!".

But yeah, on the track I posted in "post your own music" thread today, I tuned the vocalist a little. But she's not a pro and I edited everything to require as little tuning as possible -And it's only a guide track to hear what she sounds like - Next session she'll have to sing a notch better. There's one thing having a tuner touch up everything inaudibly, but I just hate when you can hear how a tuning device kicks in. Sounds butt ugly.

Just wanted to point out though, that it's only in spots that you can hear it (although it's probably touching up everything a bit constantly, you know, a few cents here and there. Standard stuff nowadays, sadly), both in the Kiske and Bach cases. Kiske puts on a fantastic performance on Unisonic. Just turn that fucking tuner off and have him redo the lines damnit. I mean damnit, had Screaming for Vengeance been recorded today you can bet there would be a tuner touching things up.
 
Last edited:
For starters, Your actual time around 35 secs in. All are probably touched up a bit (and to be fair to Kiske, which also corroborates my point about it being redundantly used,those notes are just a slight bit tuned). It's hardly noticable in that particualr case, but I think it's annoying as fuck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top