The Sage The Fool The Sinner

[davidn]

I said in my thoughts about this album's preview that it was always the songs with the strange titles that were the best. It just occurred to me that I could look up the full songs on Youtube - this is amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb2EUU6EGRw

I couldn't make out the lyrics from just listening, and I was sort of surprised when I looked them up, for the difference between the song's sound and its lyrics and... well, its title - it seems to be similar in theme to the early Rise and Fall and I have no idea why it's called The Sage, The Fool, The Sinner. The sound of the song pretty much demonstrates what they said they were doing with this album - it's got a hard edge to it, but it's really... happy. It's once again remarkable how they can apply this powerful, epic sound to words like "They got to the place, unlocked the shed" and yet have it work.

I used to pick only a couple of Helloween songs per album that I liked, but recently they've just kept getting better and better. I really hope that the permanent expression of gloom on Michael Weikath's miserable old face turned up at least half a millimetre at the edges after writing this one, because it really is fantastic. Though to be fair, if my name was pronounced "Michelle" I think I wouldn't be terribly happy in general either.

Comments

[kjorteo]

This is... actually really good, after I was all ready to be underwhelmed by their latest album and everything. Helloween really are terrible at picking which songs from an album to promote as their singles, aren't they? I just went back and notice that I disagree with their picks on basically every album they've put out with which I'm familiar since Andi Deris even joined the band. Even Master of the Rings chose Perfect Gentleman (naturally, that one's a no-brainer,) Where the Rain Grows (I... guess I can see that,) Mr. Ego (well since they had to get back at Michael Kiske, I guess....) and Sole Survivor (???,) and noticeably did not choose Secret Alibi, which I would have thought to be as much of a blatant made-for-the-sole-purpose-of-being-a-single song as, say, Just a Little Sign. I'd have gone with Perfect Gentleman, Secret Alibi, Mr. Ego (if they must,) and maybe The Game is On from that album, myself.

[davidn]

You know, I'm sure I thought up a ton to say about this last night but I've forgotten it all now. I, of course, shared the feeling of being underwhelmed with the pre-release "Are You Metal?" (though in Andi Deris's case, a better question might be Are You Mental?) and then being much more interested in the glimpses of other songs, but I've never really considered the Internet singles to be representative of the album because I know that, like you, my favourites always seem to be the underpromoted ones. In an extreme example, Miracle by Gamma Ray is one of their best early songs ever - but it was a bonus track that was done as... almost a parody of one of their other songs, Man on a Mission. I heard Miracle first, and hearing that chorus sung with a double pedal drum background just sounds completely wrong, now.

Choosing from the Helloween albums that I'm most familiar with is a difficult choice for me, but limiting myself to two an album and just playing favourites... I would have said Silent Rain and Invisible Man from Keepers 3, and The Saints and... well, I love As Long As I Fall so I would agree there, for Gambling with the Devil. Of course, many of my absolute favourites are just too long to realistically be used as singles...

[kjorteo]

Just a Little Sign was actually the only single from Rabbit Don't Come Easy, and I can't deny that one--it was just made to be a single. However, I'd have given that album more love (it seems like even Helloween themselves just intended for that one to sort of be a placeholder, the one that just fell in between The Dark Ride and Keepers 3, even though I swear that entire album is amazing and still my favorite of theirs once you actually give it a chance!) and also promoted The Tune, and maybe Open Your Life/Never Be a Star/Don't Stop Being Crazy (advice Andi Deris has really taken to heart, it would seem) in some combination.

I agree with you on Silent Rain and Invisible Man from Keepers 3. Good picks. :) I also agree with Helloween themselves for picking Light the Universe, though; I do love that one.

For Gambling, probably As Long as I Fall, Final Fortune, Fallen to Pieces, and Never Surrender, which is also an example of my disagreeing with their "which songs are good enough for the main album and which should be bonus tracks" decisions as well.

Oh, and I'm not sure what this means, if anything, but... go look at the lyrics/music writing credits for any other Helloween album, which are mostly perfectly balanced team efforts, then look at Rabbit, which is apparently two steps away from being an Andi Deris solo project in disguise. Huh..

[davidn]

Now, that is interesting... Gamma Ray are the only band for which I can name who wrote a song just by listening to it (Dirk Schlachter: slow and majestic, Henjo Richter: bright arpeggios, Dan Zimmerman: tends to feature the drums more, Kai Hansen: It's a Judas Priest song) and I'd noticed that Dirk's seemed to have been disappearing lately, but... though I couldn't really have a decent go at naming them by sound, Helloween are actually the most misleading band in this regard that I know of, because of things like Windmill and Can Do It being written by Weikath (I mean, just look at him).

Where are you getting your credits from? I actually see a lot more of Deris on albums after Rabbit, on Helloween's site. Also, I want to mention that it has got... scarier.

[davidn]

And another thing - I'm not even sure of the distinction between the bonus and 'normal' tracks on Gambling with the Devil! I mean, two of them were shuffled off to a second CD, but... I don't disagree with those being excluded in favour of any specific other tracks, so much as I wonder why it wasn't a 14-track album instead of a 12-track one (it says they're limited edition digipack bonuses, but I don't have the limited digipack and I still have them, so... I don't know.)

Never Surrender, though, isn't even given a mention on their site - so... yes, something's definitely pushing that one away...

[kjorteo]

Hmm... the site seems to compress them all down to a single name, and that is divided pretty evenly on Rabbit, yes. I got mine from Wikipedia, which A) has separate credits for lyrics and music, and B) is seemingly less afraid to mention when more than one person co-wrote something. The extra room for credit that opens up breaks very disproportionately heavily for Deris.

[davidn]

That's... very unusual that they would favour one co-credit over another for the band's official site, but I don't really know how these things work - I'm sort of glad that I've only ever written alone and avoided these ownership problems :)

What's also unusual is having the vast majority of songs written by someone who I wouldn't have thought of as the 'leader' of the band... usually this leader seems to be the vocalist (Ben Sotto, Piet Sielck), but not always (Steve Harris, Alexander Beyrodt) - I would still have thought of Helloween as Weikath's band.

[kjorteo]

Which is precisely why I noted how unusual it was that Deris contributed so disproportionately heavily to that particularly album... the others are more or less even, even after expanding to include separate lyrics/music and cowriting credits. And yet that one is still my favorite (though Gambling With the Devil is a very close #2 and Master of the Rings is an even closer #3,) so make of that what you will because I don't really know.