Bericht
door Lennert » wo okt 12, 2005 3:31 pm
Van metal-archives geplukt, het album heeft met 4 stemmen het gemiddelde van 80%, dat zo laag ligt door deze stemmer:
I'm taking about 10 points off for the title. I mean had they called this one "Dancing With Fairies" or something equally Pink Bubbles-like, I would have said "oh what the fuck, this is mediocre, but it isn't actually directly shitting on the Kai Hansen years, so I suppose it'll pass". But, alas, aforementioned defecation is non-hypothetical, and therefore, this album gets a fucking forty.
It's not really *bad* in that "latest Phil Anselmo project that claims to be black metal" sense - and it's even a tad better than that terrible Pussy Don't Come Easy shit - but it's not actually good, and to speak of it in the same sentence as Keeper I and II without somehow throwing in an "is defecated on by" construction would be blasphemy.
It's pretty much what you'd imagine from Helloween nowadays - sorta generic and uninspired songwriting, Deris's Deutsche-AOR vocals, and the occasional cute chorus. But, alas, this is a tired band at work - a band whose last super-gonzo-brilyuntzorz idea was the middle break in Midnight Sun and a Mahogany Rush cover (it's a FUCKING Juggernaut, fellas, I thought I should warn you)... and since then has come up for air once (The Dark Ride), and then decided to descend into self-parody through riff recycling and overproduction (Never Be a Star/Perfect Gentleman), shuffling through guitarists and drummers, and then coming up with this thing, which can basically be called "Pussy Still Don't Come Easy - now with longer songs".
Oh really, some of it is okay, but I mean some of that pussy shit was okay too - it's just that the last few years of Helloween's career have been so goddamn forgettable and generic and "mix up chorus here, solo there, little melodic lick here, and you'd never know the difference"... most of the songs on here are just like that. Seriously, can someone tell me, in an objective manner, what the difference is between, say, Do You Feel Good, and Do You Know What You're Fighting For?
The truth of the matter is, you could probably pick up the Mrs. God single and have all you need: Mrs. God, and My Life for One More Day - both of which are singalong blasts of fun. Especially the second one, which for a few seconds here and there puts the Power back in power metal. Also, the ballad, Light the Universe, is surprisingly good... Deris-era ballads have been hit (Forever and One, Where The Eagle Learns to Fly) or miss (the rest, basically), but give one point to the good guys here, because this ballad ain't anywhere near bad.
But, the thing is, there's only so many points to give... when I was trying to pull reference material, I put in A Million to One (because I had mistakenly remembered that as being ballad-like), and kept it in, because that song fucking rules, and the problem with this album is that there is nothing on here that fucking rules of that caliber. No overtly fist-fuck-and-loving-it-amazing solos... (ahem, March of Time) no soul crusher riffs (ahem, that thrash section in Halloween) - Keeper of the Seven Keys, this is not.
If you want Keeper of the Seven Keys part III, try Scanner's "Terminal Earth", or maybe Gamma Ray's Powerplant if you want something that shares at least one member with the first two. The latest Helloween turd-platter, however, has an extremely tenuous claim on the title. This technically may feature Weiki and Grosskopf, but the divergence away from That Sound is pretty damn overt, and has been so since approximately 1996. Not that Helloween have not put out great albums since then (the next two), but still, Before the War is the last thing that could wear Ride the Sky on its sleeve with dignity and grace. This cannot, and therefore it has no place being called the Keeper of anything.
Seriously, what sort of brilliant marketing douchebag came up with the idea to call the new Helloween LP "Keeper of the Seven Keys - the Legacy". I suppose "More of the Rabbit Don't Come Easy Sound, Though a Bit Better Produced, With that one Riff from Megadeth's This Was My Life to Start Track Ten" didn't have a good ring.
Seriously, it's the Pussy Legacy, if it's any legacy at all. The long songs are long, and not particularly epic - their only similarity to Halloween and Keeper being that the length in minutes is expressed with multiple digits... oh and there's a few samples at the beginning of Occasion Avenue where the dude channel-surfs through Helloween classics and scoffs them all. Well, the feeling is reciprocal.
As for the short songs - just really worth mentioning. I can't say I'm planning on cranking this one any time soon. Oh, maybe I'll go to that folder on my hard drive, but then I'll immediately realise - oh hey I've got Time of the FUCKING Oath right here. Mrs. God got a smirk out of me, and just when I was about to turn the damn thing off, My Life for One More Day came up promising, and kinda delivered... but there are no Steel Tormentors here. No We Burn or I Can or All Over the Nations or any of that, really.
And, certainly, no Save Us or Twilight of the Gods. Those songs caught you by the throat and whipped your head into a fuck-frenzy of unmitigated Raw Fucking Power - that is what I think of when I think of the Keeper era. Even the goofy stuff of that era, like Rise and Fall and Future World, completely smokes the "serious" stuff of this album.
Legacy my ass.
Eindcijfer: 40%
Strijdkreet schreef:Als ik lennert denk, denk ik Van damme hoofd.
Dus als ik Van damme op tv zie denk ik. "Stik, daar heb je lennert.... oh wacht...."
:' )
Voorts ben ik van mening dat het fenomeen influencer vernietigd moet worden.
