Helloween & Gamma Ray

Forostar said:
Is that possible, a great Helloween album with only 1 Hansen song?

I like several post-Hansen era albums but these included important Grapow and/or Kusch contributions mostly.
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We'll see in two months.;) My favorite album post-Hansen is Master Of The Rings.
 
Gambling With The Devil was the last great Helloween album and it didn't have Hansen, Grapow or Kusch. Deris and Gerstner were on top of their game there. Then on the next album Deris opens the album with two major stinkers.

Helloween is generally a very inconsistent band both in sound and quality. Sometimes a band member writes all great songs on one album, then all stinkers on the next one.
 
Kalata said:
If he can pull out such a fantastic song like ''Avalon'', I can't call that creative burnout.
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Well, if you look at the full body of work after Majestic, it’s pretty sad overall. “Avalon” was the best thing he’d done in nearly 10 years, and yes, it’s fantastic.

So is the creative tank empty? No. Has it been sputtering for a long time, though? I’d say yes.
 
Night Prowler said:
Deris and Gerstner were on top of their game there. Then on the next album Deris opens the album with two major stinkers.
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7 Sinners was a weaker album for him writing-wise (minus the fantastic Long Live the King), but since that he has rebounded with Nabataea, My God-Given Right and Lost In America to name a few.

I think Deris and Gerstner are generally really good writers. Weikath has been their weakest writer for a long while now, almost always coming up with generic cheese. The only exceptions on their 21st century albums are Salvation, Raise the Noise, and Creatures in Heaven. Grosskopf doesn't write that much but his songs are always among the best on any album (Final Fortune, World of Fantasy, Hell Was Made in Heaven, Straight Out of Hell, Heaven Tells No Lies), so I'd like to see more from him in the future.
 
Night Prowler said:
Gambling With The Devil was the last great Helloween album and it didn't have Hansen, Grapow or Kusch. Deris and Gerstner were on top of their game there. Then on the next album Deris opens the album with two major stinkers.

Helloween is generally a very inconsistent band both in sound and quality. Sometimes a band member writes all great songs on one album, then all stinkers on the next one.
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Is it an inconsistent pattern when Helloween releases three less great albums in a row (after Gambling with the Devil)? All Helloween albums have their great moments and of course it is a very personal thing if an album was great or not but could it be argued that the two albums before Gambling were not that great either?

So perhaps GWTD was one of the few great albums (or the only great album) in a string of 6 albums.

I can enjoy some Pink Bubbles Go Ape, but definitely because of the Grapow input. Mankind, The Chance, Someone's Crying. Top quality especially the last two. The non-Grapow songs bar Number One I did not find good (I like Kids of the Century as well but not that much). So as a whole album, not a great album.

IMO Chameleon has one of Helloween's very best songs, Giants. I Believe was very good as well. Both no Grapow credit. So while songwriters are not always flawless (at least in someone's opinion ;) ), Grapow did very good on all the albums he was on, bar one. As an album I enjoy this one the least of all pre GWTD albums. The style was not my cup of tea on a huge percentage of this album.

On the last three albums the amount of "yeah this rules" moments have been sparser imo (and in Night Prowler's opinion if I understand him well).

So forgive me for being surprised by this songwriting balance. It is odd to see Kai having one song. As far as I'm concerned he is the father of power metal. Simply because he easily wrote the most great Helloween songs in the 1980s. And because he was the main songwriter who started the band (and predecessors).

At the same time, maybe he was in a situation to be critical of everyone's input. To stimulate the quality. I hope they all were.. and perhaps it indeed does not matter a flying f. who did what. It is just very striking, I thought, that Deris has 5 songs. How did that happen? Yes he wrote a lot of good songs in the past, but I hadn't expected his works would again have been the most fruitful and the most accepted, in this field. I guess he had "a little time" hehe (it was a long gap!) and used it the best. I hope!

Kiske has no credits.
As long as he has good singing spots I'm perfectly fine. Everyone their quality.
Skyfall showcases an excellent use of all three the singers and together they sound very, very good as well.

Edit: good point Kalata when you talk about b-sides. Helloween has a long tradition of strong b-sides. Often I felt that a lot of these b-sides were better than the average track. Will history repeat and we can say that b-sides are better? It's a long wait.
 
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Can't even remember the last time when I bought a new single, but today I received the ordered Skyfall CD single. A pleasant surprise is that I hadn't expected that the "exclusive alternative vocals mix" is an alternative for the full length 12 minute song (instead of the 7 minute single).

edit: the last new CD single I bought might have been Different World, in 2006.
 
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Black Bart said:
Someone has managed to share the full version of "Skyfall" on YouTube (big thank you to them). :)
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This is the alternative vocal mix.

The only difference (I think) is during the first verse (*not the intro) - here is sung by Andi (while in the original is sung by Kiske).
 
new single

pleasant sounding production. Nice guitars, no 'live in the studio' feel, polished and not muddy. Maiden, please take a note or two.
Comment from Youtube : "Now we can certainly say that Helloween is having their best period \m/ \m/" Algal the Bard
 
Their best period... when listening to one or two songs in one day? Not a hair on my head. Not yet at least.
 
Azas said:
new single
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Very good song with an interesting structure - acoustic calm intro, superb main riff and great verses (with calm parts too). The chorus (along with the instrumental section) is the best thing in the song. The instrumental section is essential Helloween (awesome harmonies and solos). The singing of ''Decide'' is so typical of the Andi Deris era. Kudos to him for writing the whole song. Every fan of the band should be happy with this song, which has all the things we expect and like in Helloween.
 
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