Keeper of the Seven Keys
A lesson I learned recently: when a true headbanger says something is good, it must be. At least that's the case with Keeper of the Seven Keys. After acquiring some balls, I sat down and listened to it, something I had hesitated with because I thought I'd be disappointed by it not being so nut-crushingly marvellous as I thought it'd be. But it was.
As the introduction track in Part I slowly built up tension, so did my heartbeat. It had very high promises about what would come next. “Boom!” it said, and a magic harmonized riff possessed me, leaving me in a trance one only can experience from listening to True Metal at the correct volume. Awesome. Rockin' on to track four, and it takes off completely. Dude. That's one happy opening riff. And dude. The rest of the song. The pre-chorus, the chorus, everything is so... perfect. But then there is one problem. Not about the song. That song is pretty great. But the song that follows it... it's a ballad, and it's in the middle of my metal! It's not bad. It just... doesn't belong, you know? Well, never mind. "Future World" kind of makes up for it. It was one of the first Helloween songs I heard, and one of the first power metal tracks I heard, too. There should be more of the like. I wouldn't mind if every song on an album sounded like "Future World", or even if every song on an album
was "Future World". I would mind every song sounding like "Halloween", though. It's just too long. I'm glad there's Part II too, because "Follow the Sign" is pretty much nothing but a transition between the parts.
Moving on to Part II, and man, I love this intro. It's so happy, there's an eagle in it, and it fades perfectly into... "Eagle Fly Free". It seems to really strengthen the impact of it. And "Eagle Fly Free" is an amazing song. Shame on you if you haven't heard it. You should put your head in a public toilet. Yes, now. And then go listen to it. But take a shower first. Wouldn't want to pollute the Metal with your poop stench, huh? Then move on to the next song. It's pretty good too. Well, not as good as "Eagle Fly Free", but it gets the job done, you know? At least it's better then the one that follows. I think it's a filler, and it's not very funny either. It should learn from "Dr. Stein", that's a pretty good song, but almost every song is good on this album, in my opinion. Except for "Rise and Fall". I like "March of Time", but I'm a little embarrassed to say that, since it utilizes an overused chord progression in the chorus, though I guess I shouldn't care, I'm too young. Besides, it's power metal, cheesiness is included. The epic on this part ("Keeper of the Seven Keys") is much better than "Halloween" from Part I. It has the storyline of the albums, I like the intro, and I don't really know what else.
The Batlord and Unknown Soldier were right, these albums are truly amazing, but Part II is slightly better. I want to hear more like this, but I'm afraid that their other albums aren't as good... how can you follow up this?