Boxset Review: Helloween - March Of Time
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Cor Blimey! Would you Adam-and-Eve it…? Helloween is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year and as a tribute to the Hamburg pioneers of speed / thrashing / power metal, BMG are issuing this forty-two-track retrospective of the band’s finest moments from all sixteen albums of their catalogue.
Available in either digital format, triple CD or a deluxe limited edition red vinyl, over five discs and including an art print and a puzzle. Clocking in at around half a working day, March of Time’s track list has been specifically curated by the band themselves and remastered by Sascha Bühren, the engineer responsible for the self-titled album back in 2021.
So, allow me to be the Virgil to your Dante, as I guide you through the sixteen circles of Helloween.
The story starts proper in 1984, when members of Iron Fist, Gentry, Second Hell and Powerfoot combined to become Helloween. Those individuals, known separately as Kai Hansen, Michael Weikath, Markus Grosskopf and Ingo Schwichtenberg, wasted no time in writing and recording what would turn out to be their debut, also self-titled, EP.
The oldest track on March of Time is the speed metal assault of Victim of Fate from that release, it’s driving and ferocious, with a rawness usually associated with the thrash scene. The twin guitars of Kai and Michael, even then, were a potent combination, as well as the atmospheric interlude, which more than ticks the Eighties theatrics box.
Within six months Helloween were ready to release their full-length debut and the world wouldn’t really be the same again.
Walls of Jericho is represented here by the intro instrumental, borrowing from Halloween III’s Silver Shamrock jingle and the kind of bombast they would become known for; following on from that regal opening comes the raging Ride the Sky and, no matter what era you’re from, this is a boisterous speed metal banger, musically brutal if showing the limitations of Hansen’s vocal ability. Metal Invaders and How Many Tears were highlights of an album that still holds up to this day.
The intervening years between Walls of Jericho and the sophomore Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part 1 saw the recruitment of a young Michael Kiske, from German band Ill Prophecy to take over the vocals. Released in 1987, this is the record that saw Helloween switching to a more Power Metal oriented sound, resulting in the thirteen-minute classic Halloween, the achingly soulful A Tale that Wasn’t Right and the band’s first single, the rollocking Future World, which is still a live favourite to this day.
Originally conceived as a double album, Helloween released Part 2 a year later, by which time they had attracted much attention from the Godfathers of the Metal scene. Not only did Keeper 2 find much commercial and critical success it also saw the band on tour with the likes of Ozzy, Scorpions and Iron Maiden. Opening the 1988 Donington Monsters of Rock, a bill that included Guns N’ Roses, Megadeth, David Lee Roth and Kiss, as well as Maiden’s stunning Seventh Son production, Helloween premiered tracks from the as-yet unreleased album. Here, you’ll find quite a selection from that title, including both singles, Dr Stein and I Want Out, the rampaging Eagle Fly Free and March of Time and the epic conclusion to the Keeper sage, the near quarter of an hour title track.
Following the Keeper 2 tour Kai would leave the band in 1989 and form Gamma Ray, opening the door for former Rampage guitarist, Roland Garpow to enter. Pink Bubbles Go Ape was released in 1991 to mixed reception due to the departure in style and presentation from the previous records.
At a cost of £400, 000 Pink Bubbles Go Ape was, by the band’s own admission, devoid of any inspiration. The Storm Thorgerson cover and the omission of the pumpkin O in the band logo suggested his was a very different beast than its predecessors. Included here are the singles from Bubbles, Kids of the Century and Number One, both of which try to keep the band in touch with the changing musical landscape of the early Nineties.
The much maligned follow up, Chameleon, released in 1993, would be the last time this iteration of Helloween would be heard playing together. Critically panned, Chameleon would at least try to move the band into more contemporary territory – this was, after all, the height of the Grunge scene and bands like Helloween represented the past. Only Windmill, the third of four singles from that record appear here, it’s a pretty generic power ballad and really quite toothless to be honest. Things had to change.
And change they did. Both Kiske and drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg left Helloween after Chameleon, replaced by Andi Deris, once of Pink Cream 69, and drummer Uli Kusch, who’d already spent time behind Holy Moses and Gamma Ray’s kits before becoming a pumpkin. It was the injection Helloween needed as the resulting record, 1994’s Master of the Rings righted the ship, bringing back that Power Metal stomp and making music on the band’s terms.
Two of the album’s four singles, Sole Survivor and Perfect Gentleman, updated things for a new decade without throwing the baby out with the bathwater as the previous record had, and the power ballad, In the Middle of a Heartbeat, was suitably cheesy. Why? Sits somewhere in between, giving Andi free reign to flex those vocal chords.
As the band he helped form toured Master of the Rings, Ingo Schwichtenberg took his own life at the age of twenty-nine.
Helloween found stability as the decade moved to a close. Releasing Time of the Oath in 1996 and Better than Raw in 1998, they were tenaciously touring and releasing singles. Power brought some of the speed metal back to the band, its infectious chorus plicating the power metal crowd; Forever and One (Neverland) is a big and emotional anthem, soaring vocals and heroic soloing. Steel Tormentor is as metal as you can get, driving rhythms and an unstoppable beat showed Helloween were back to being scene leaders. Better Than Raw’s Hey Lord has an AOR feel to it, while I Can goes for a more alternative vibe.
For the early part of the new millennium, Helloween dropped their Ds and brought Roy Z on to produce The Dark Ride, a bleaker collection of songs, evidenced here by the ominous Mr Torture and the aspirational If I Could Fly. There’re some great licks on The Dark Ride and the more morose atmosphere gives it a certain maturity.
The stability of the past few years / albums was shattered when Garpow exited, replaced by Sascha Gerstner of Freedom Call, and the drum stool was vacated, meaning the subsequent album, Rabbit Don’t Come Easy – a play on the expression about pulling rabbits out of hats – was performed by a series of guest percussionists. The only track on March of Time from that album is Hell Was Made In Heaven, and features then Motörhead sticksman, for a heavier romp than the odd album title would suggest.
For their eleventh chapter, Helloween would return to the Keeper universe for the third time with Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy in 2005. The vacant drum stool would be filled by former Element 58 and Rawhead Rexx banger, Dani Löble for what would be a seventy-seven-minute double album. The Invisible Man was the second single (after Mrs God) from Keeper 3 and was suitably widescreen for such a return; choppy riffs and that Helloween trademark sound, with Andi’s vocals alternating between his soaring screams and almost-spoken word passages. Light the Universe would feature the smoky voice of Candice Night, from Blackmore’s Night, for an expansive a tune as the title suggests. It was brave of the band to return to the legacy of the Keeper records and it sort of paid off, though the majesty of those two records is assured in the annals of Heavy Metal History.
The following album, Gambling with the Devil in 2007, was something of a reaction to the vastness of The Legacy and so, devoid of any overarching theme or narrative, the band just focused on writing a series of killer metal songs. As Long As I Fall is an anthem about never giving up, played using all of the arrows in Helloween’s quiver and compressed into a tight four-minutes. Kill It leans back into the band’s speed metal roots, blending them with the huge bombast of power metal. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for this album when it comes to later-era Helloween and this retrospective hasn’t gone any way to change that.
When it comes to 7 Sinners from 2010, March of Time plumps for the opening couple of tracks, Where the Sinners Go and the single Are You Metal? For the first, there’s a distinctly Judas Priest flavour to be heard as Andi reaches those high notes, while having a Queenryche feel running through the choruses. How Helloween hadn’t named a song Are You Metal? by this point in their career is a mystery, but that’s rectified by the unashamedly European metal anthem that had caused a million fists to pump everywhere around the world.
In 2013 Helloween released Straight Out of Hell, intentionally ditching their darker side and focusing on being more jovial and upbeat. Nabataea is a tribute to the kingdom in modern Jordan which hasn’t been responsible for bringing war to any other county. It’s infused with some middle eastern sounds without coming across as trite. The title track is an old school romp that could fit on those early records without too many problems, and Waiting for the Thunder is all about the juxtaposition of the introspective verses with the big choruses.
Album number fifteen, My God Given Right, release in 2015 for the band’s thirtieth anniversary would be the final album of the current five-piece line-up that had been together since Keeper 3. Try as they might, the optimism of the previous record was replaced by a more sombre and auto-biographical collection. Heroes is hard and unrelenting, dealing as it does with the lives of ordinary people just trying to get by; the title track is classic Helloween with powerful guitars and solid rhythms.
A year after My God-Given Right it was announced Helloween would be recruiting Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen, turning the band into a seven-piece, and embarking on the Pumpkins United tour. Such was the success of that jaunt that the band stayed together and eventually released their self-titled full length in 2021, blending all the elements of the band into a single entity.
The final four track of March of Time are from that record, starting with the Pumpkins United song itself. A bonus from the CD version of the album it showcases the dual vocals of Andi and Michael, name-dropping the history of the band in a three-guitar celebration of all that is Helloween.
Best of Times has a massive chorus and Fear of the Fallen plays with some folk elements, but it’s unmistakeably Helloween and their most consistent album in years. The epic Skyfall recycles the Happy Halloween theme before ripping into an uncompromising eleven-minute emotional roller-coaster of a tune.
Helloweeen is a Heavy Metal Institution, plain and simple, and should you want to give yourself a whistle-stop tour of the band’s music then March of Time is a perfect place to start. Theirs is not a flawless discography – Heavy Metal Hamsters, anyone? – but it is an honest one. Some experiments worked, some didn’t, but Helloween keep on going like the absolute legends they are.
Donington 1988 seems such a long time ago, but the energy of that show, and the youthful nature of these (then West) Germans is a true testament to the power of persistence.
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