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 A WHOLE ALBUM OF HELLOWEEN!!! HELL YEAH!!! Walls of Jericho is the debut album from German power metal legends Helloween, and it's a masterpiece! First of all, let's look at the cover: The title Walls of Jericho is a reference to the Battle of Jericho, which is written about in the Biblical Book of Joshua. Wikipedia summarizes what happened by describing it as "the first battle fought by the Israelites in the course of the conquest of Canaan. According to Joshua 6:1–27, the walls of Jericho fell after the Israelites marched around the city walls once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh day, and then blew their trumpets." Well, that was the traditional version of the story - in the Helloween version, Fangface, decked out in a kickass hood, singlehandedly destroys the walls with his bare fists, and the trumpet is played by some pumpkin-faced dude in a white T-shirt! I love the art and the concept is so outside the box yet so metal! The fr...
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