Cries from the Quiet World: Helloween "Helloween"

jueves, 13 de enero de 2022

Helloween "Helloween"

Helloween is the self-titled sixteenth studio album by German power metal band Helloween, released on 18 June 2021. The album is the first released with the "Pumpkins United" line-up, which marked the return of original member Kai Hansen on guitars and vocals and Michael Kiske on vocals in 2016, in addition to the five-member line-up active since 2005.

Helloween is the first album to feature Hansen since 1988's Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II and the first one with Kiske since 1993's Chameleon. Released six years after its predecessor My God-Given Right (the longest gap between two albums from the band), the album is also the first to feature more than one singer, as Hansen, Kiske and Andi Deris, all of whom had performed as sole lead vocalist on previous albums, share lead vocal duties. The album reached top ten positions in several international music charts.

In January 1989, guitarist Kai Hansen left Helloween and founded Gamma Ray, with whom he has played and recorded ever since. Vocalist Michael Kiske did the same in 1993 and focused on a solo career, aside from taking part in projects such as Avantasia. While Hansen remained in good terms with both the band and Kiske, the latter had not spoken to the remaining Helloween members for decades.

In 2016, guitarist Michael Weikath approached Kiske in the backstage of a festival and asked him: "what did I do that you can't forgive me?"; such question made Kiske realize he had already forgiven Weikath but failed to notice it. Following some encouragement from Hansen, by that time his bandmate at Unisonic, he agreed to join them for the Pumpkins United Tour.

Former guitarist Roland Grapow and drummer Uli Kusch were not asked to re-join, with Grosskopf stating "it would be too many people". This new line-up released an original song, "Pumpkins United", on 13 October 2017 on which Deris, Hansen, and Kiske all share lead vocals. The Pumpkins United World Tour started in Monterrey, Mexico on 19 October 2017.

About a potential studio album under the new line-up, Deris stated in March 2018: "We certainly have lots and lots of talks [about it]. This summer, if the chemistry goes on like this, then everything is possible. After recording that particular "Pumpkins United" song, we realized that it's easy working together. [...] Yeah, it was no problem at all, as if we would have worked together for decades already. So, I could see an upcoming album for the future. If the chemistry stays the way it is now, I definitely would say 99 percent yes, we're going for it." When they were interviewed together in June, Weikath stated: "We don't really feel like starting with it because it's going to be a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of time and right now, we are kind of comfy with what we are doing, so to say", while Hansen stated "There's a lot of ideas in the room for what we do next and so on. But, nothing is kind of decided. Nothing is ripe for the decision. We leave that open, kind of."

On 21 August 2018, the band announced that, at the request of their label Nuclear Blast, they would all remain together and that a new studio album would be recorded later in 2018 for a planned 2020 release, with Weikath, Hansen and Deris acting as a "songwriting trio". In March 2021, the album's title and release date was announced.

In March 2019, Deris stated that he had written two duets between him and Kiske for the upcoming album.

On 26 November 2019, the band published a video in which they shared that they had begun recording their next album in Hamburg (where they had previously recorded four successive albums in the 1990s, from 1993's Chameleon to 1998's Better Than Raw), and that they were planning to resume touring in late 2020. On 1 June 2020, Helloween confirmed that they had "decided to shift the release" of their new album to early next year, with Ronald Prent mixing it.

Most of the album was recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic; Kiske got back from his recording sessions in Tenerife in April 2020, shortly before flights in Europe were brought to a halt. Weikath, on the other hand, was caught in the middle of strict lockdowns and even had to spend one night at the studio.

Drums of the album were recorded with former drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg's original kit, and the band used the same modulators used when they recorded Master of the Rings, The Time of the Oath and Better Than Raw.

The cover art was painted by hand by Eliran Kantor and selected against a number of digitally created images. Markus Staiger (founder of Nuclear Blast) was initially against it and tried to convince the band to chose another one, but the musicians' opinion prevailed.

Track listing

Helloween track listing