Welcome back, power metal warriors! Today, we'll be looking at Helloween's classic self-titled 1985 debut EP. Let's check out the artwork: Damn, that's cool! This cover features the debut of Helloween's mascot, Fangface (no relation to the Saturday morning cartoon!) and he makes a hell of a first impression with his menacing face bursting out from a pumpkin in some kind of post-apocalyptic environment with dark clouds and lightning and fire and all that cool shit! I'm not sure how the pumpkin's in the air... maybe it has some kind of supernatural powers that keep it all floaty and immune to being set on fire? How does someone's face get stuck inside a pumpkin? Why does the pumpkin in the Helloween logo having glowing red eyes? Did it cause all of this madness? But it doesn't matter because it looks badass, and in metal, that's all that matters! Now, let's flip this record and check out the back: This back cover is really nice - the way the s...
WOAH!!! It's time for review #1! So, according to the mighty Encyclopedia Metallum (what an epic name!), these Helloween dudes are a band formed in Hamburg, Germany in 1978. From 1978 until 1981, they were called Gentry, then from 1981-1982 they were Second Hell. In 1982-1983 they changed their name to Iron Fist (possibly inspired by the British metal band Motorhead's song/album of the same name), and then, in 1983, lightning struck and the band found their permanent name: HELLOWEEN! It's like Halloween, but extra spooky because it's in hell! Kickass! On June 17th, 1984, they released the Death Metal Demo - which according to Metallum was untitled, but it's called the Death Metal demo because both of the songs on this tape appeared on a 1984 compilation released by the German label Noise Records entitled Death Metal . On that release, one of the bands Helloween was paired with was Running Wild (you'll be hearing more about Running Wild later - at the time they...
It's Omen time again! Today, I'll be looking at the band's third album and second to have power metal as a primary genre on RYM: 1986's dazzling The Curse ! Let's check out the album cover: The serpent from Warning of Danger is back, and it means business! Keep everyone away from it or else you too will face... the curse! It's a nice, gory, uber-metal album cover and I imagine it would really stand out if you saw it while browsing through records. Bands like Cannibal Corpse would go way more hardcore with ultra super mega metal gory album covers later on, but for 1986 standards it's pretty violent! It's also uncommon to see covers like this in power metal - usually it's more Dungeons & Dragons type art. Flipping the record over, we get to see the band, all looking metal with cool shirts, long hair, blue jeans and sneakers, and the close-up of the serpent's skin is a killer detail that looks great. On the inner sleeve, we get this kickass ...
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