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It's been absolutely ages since I wrote an album review. In fact, it's been a while since I bought any albums, but I've been provided with a few by my brother. The most notable of them is this, Helloween's continuation of the double concept album that they started all the way back in the 80s, with the return of the Keeper of the Seven Keys, who looks like something out of Doctor Who.Helloween are credited as the founders of power metal, and have also gained a reputation for being resolutely insane. On listening to various parts of this album, I decided that this reputation was entirely justified (although I had had my suspicions before, what with previous album titles including Pink Bubbles Go Ape and Rabbit Don't Come Easy). Slightly desperately, The Legacy comes on two discs even though it could easily fit on one - Iron Savior's Unification was quite a bit longer and still managed to squeeze on to one extended CD. But once you've ripped it to your hard drive it doesn't really matter, does it?
As I'll frequently mention throughout all this, it now seems that things have come round in a circle and Helloween are now emulating the sounds of the very bands that they inspired twenty years ago.
1.1: The King for 1000 Years: 8/10 Unusually, the album starts off with a fourteen-minute epic that's very similar to the original Keeper of the Seven Keys. Things like this are normally best left until the last song or so (though I don't exactly follow my own rules). Most of the song is enjoyable, though the actual "King for 1000 Years" section sounds too overdone and tuneless - it does make up for it by coming up (eventually) with an amazing string-led ending with glass-shatteringly high vocals. Another slight problem is the Sonata Arctica-style narrator at the beginning, which isn't a bad idea in itself, but unfortunately has a rather pronounced Northern accent.
1.2: The Invisible Man: 9/10 I liked this one immediately. It's hampered by a daft-sounding growl near the beginning, but the chorus more than makes up for it. It doesn't seem to be much to do with the Invisible Man himself, but is more a continuation of Henjo Richter's Guardians of Mankind idea (though admittedly I haven't read the book) - the religious tone of the song feels very much like Gamma Ray. And the ending is a Stratovarius-like minute-long fadeout to get the song up to seven minutes - even though it's uncharacteristic of the band, there's a nice piano solo while it's going, though. It's easily the best song on the album. Listen to it!
1.3: Born on Judgement Day: 7/10 I know I mentioned Stratovarius only a line ago, but this song could easily have been written by Timo Tolkki. Though almost identical to Freedom, I'm Still Alive, etc., this is catchy enough if you ignore the chorus lyrics. I'm slightly divided on whether the immense drum solo in the middle works. It's "dedicated to all people in Brazil" and was written in 2004, but even after extensive research on the Internet I can't see the connection.
1.4: Pleasure Drone: 6/10 This song goes at a steady 6/8 bounce for a change of pace. There's nothing that I can find that's actually wrong with it, but somehow I just don't find it very interesting.
1.5: Mrs. God: 7/10 Mrs. God is something of a guilty pleasure. The lyrics sound exactly like the kind of American teen-rock that I've always despised, but Helloween somehow manage to get the idea to work, with a instantly classic guitar melody. Much has been made of how much the song sounds like Dr. Stein, but I don't really see the similarity apart from the rhythm in the chorus. One interesting point is that there is a scream at the end of the solo in the video version, but on the album, it's replaced with... well, this.
1.6: Silent Rain: 8/10 Unusually, this was written by Sascha Gestner, and has quite a different tone to it. If Dragonforce stopped playing at Warp Nine for a couple of minutes and calmed down a little during the verses, I think this is exactly what they'd sound like. Putting aside that, the chorus itself sound suspiciously like a remake of Eagle Fly Free. Nevertheless, it's a decent song, the C-section where Andreas' voice is distorted into something resembling Video Killed the Radio Star notwithstanding. The whisper at the end could have come straight out of Silent Force's Worlds Apart.
2.1: Occasion Avenue: 6/10 The second disc begins with the sound of the narrator muttering to himself and winding through brief snatches from Helloween's old songs - Keeper of the Seven Keys, Halloween and Eagle Fly Free are among the ones included. I have absolutely no idea what most of this song means. There's a bit in the middle where it sounds like they're trying to be Dream Theater - a theory backed up during the section of the track sung in Latin. If that doesn't scream pretentiousness, I don't know what does.
2.2: Light the Universe: 6/10 Now, I'm not saying that female voices don't work with metal - look at Tarja Turunen, for example - but Candice Night just has completely the wrong voice for this song. In fact, I admit I hadn't heard of her before she appeared here, but her website looks uncomfortably mad from first glance. It's about time I said something positive, though, so the pre-chorus and solo sound very good indeed. It's a reasonably good ballad.
2.3: Do You Know What You Are Fighting For: 5/10 This is a more jazzy piece than normal, and is played at a much slower pace than the rest of the album. I'm honestly not sure whether I like this or not.
2.4: Come Alive: 4/10 In yet another unusual production choice, Come Alive opens with the sound of Andreas Deris playing Galaga, then being hit on the back of the head with considerable force. The song then blasts into a metalled-up version of the Galaga music. Anyone who knows me will have guessed that I would normally hail such an idea as the stuff of genius, but it really just doesn't work at all. A reasonable chorus prevents this from scoring lower, though, and it contains the obligatory mention of "Helloween".
2.5: The Shade in the Shadow: 4/10: You might be tempted to think this song is stupid from the title. Let's face it, you're right.
2.6: Get It Up: 6/10: This is a fairly standard metal-appreciation song, with the added peculiarity that it sounds like it was written by Jun Senoue. There's giving a happy tone to a song and completed overdoing it - while this isn't near as tragic as Crush 40's efforts with the idiot Poley, I think it's just a bit too enthusiastic. And it has an unnecessarily dodgy title.
2.7: My Life for One More Day: 7/10: The band switch back to upbeat melodic Gamma Ray-ness for the last song on the album. Initially I felt that the song wasn't interesting and that it felt like it was just there to round off the story, but it's definitely grown on me. The verse doesn't work particularly well, but yet again, the chorus saves it - you get the feeling that it could have sounded bigger, though.
So to summarize, because to be honest this is probably all that anyone will actually read, it starts off well but then gradually descends into mediocrity, only to pick up again at the end. Much like the band itself, in fact.
