Quote:
OlympicSharpshooter
Oceanminded
Joined: 31 Dec 2003
Posts: 1337
Location: Canada
Your points of criticism totally made me see one thing clear, although I have suspected as much for quite some time now: my sentences are far too fucking long!
Anyway here's the finished version, submitted already so that the correct date of writing is shown, can start editing later if anyone has something on their minds about it. This version is edited for forum viewing (BBCodes instead of HTML).
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Helloween - Rabbit Don't Come Easy
77%
Expectedly a step down
This album just cannot measure up to the previous one, the direct result of TWO factors:
1. Axeman Roland Grapow and drummer Uli Kusch departing.
Grapow and Kusch's contributions to Helloween as both musicians and songwriters, along with vocalist Andi Deris (pretty much their main songwriter ever since he joined back in 1994), have been invaluable. They were part in the amazing accomplishment of building a worthy legacy of their own that didn't stray too far from the band's original ideals and concepts following such a colossal loss in guitarist Kai Hansen leaving. Surely that loss of a member of such importance would've instantly reduced almost any other band to elephant excrement, never to rise again. Imagine perhaps not something as absurd as Maiden surviving the loss of Steve Harris, but more along the lines of a good Slayer without Jeff Hanneman (well right now they're not good WITH him either, so maybe it wasn't the best of examples after all) and you get the picture.
In any case, this wouldn't be much of a problem if Roland and Uli merely were stellar musicians on their own, as this is HELLOWEEN we're talking about and they can get anyone they want, but the thing is that these two were both integral parts of the sound and
chemistry of 1994-on resurrection-era Helloween. Such individuals are always hard for ANY band to replace, because no matter the talent (in playing as well as in writing songs) of whoever comes replacing, there is always a high risk of losing identity, spirit and a certain undeterminable
magic of a successful previous line-up. And that is exactly what has happened here, again. This is almost like the second coming of 'Pink Bubbles Go Ape' in that regard, the band's first full-length output not featuring Kai Hansen, widely considered their first "flop".
2. Musical differences within the band (a.k.a. events leading up to #1).
Uli and Roland wanting to stick with the darker themes begun on 'The Dark Ride' (really not that much of a change to these ears aside from production and guitar tone, see my review for it) and Weiki (Michael Weikath) thinking of that album as merely an experiment and wanting to go back to happy happy Helloween as quickly as possible afterwards. So here we see Weiki hell bent on making a "happy" record, unfortunately resulting in several instances of a "happiness first, songwriting second" thought behind some of this. As if 'The Dark Ride' was an abominable shitpile and worst thing to happen to them since 'Chameleon'. Weiki's tunes are clearly the happiest/goofiest, but one can certainly tell he's had quite an influence on the whole band's general direction here.
Oh there's good stuff on here too ("Ignorant and wasted, that's what you are, but you could be so much moooore!!"), y'all be so sure of that, but clearly the consistency here is lacking compared to three years ago - in fact, this is their least consistent effort since 1994's 'Master of the Rings'. As indicated by the title, some of this feels a little overly non-serious and, in a word, dumb. Well, in all fairness, perhaps not quite to a recent-Edguy extent ("Lavatory Love Machine" and "Trinidad" respectively), but the general idea of trading away actual songwriting power for, well, "humor" is definitely there, making for a frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying listen. Especially when it's not ACTUALLY funny - the only exception to this would be the by now infamous "something's growing in my pants..." line in the song "Just a Little Sign", but even so, it does little to save such a mediocre and overall disappointing album opener. Not even that nifty and totally headbangable little speed metal riff just before the first verse really does.
But perhaps worst of all is how
generic some of this feels by Helloween standards. Not only is there that soulless and overpolished production lacking Roy Z's magic touch on 'The Dark Ride', but also these songs that seem cheaply thrown together and far too derivative of their own contemporary euro-power scene (that Helloween themselves were large part in creating). "Just a Little Sign", "The Tune", "Sun 4 the World" and "Listen to the Flies" all feature that typical boring double-bass, indistinct riffage and bland, Freedom Call (you know, that band that does a shitty job of copying classic Helloween
in the first place)-styled flower metal choruses - just listen the line "make believe the world is mine" in the chorus of the first song where Andi TOTALLY emulates that annoying Chris Bay trademark sweetness, that, quoted from OlympicSharpshooter's (excellent) review for 'Crystal Empire', "makes every note sound extremely easy as if no effort is being put into it." What a fucking waste, I mean!
And who the FUCK let that goddamn attention whore of a Swede behind the drumkit, anyway? For sure, the guy has talent, and does an excellent job playing in Motörhead, but has no business in a speed/power metal band like Helloween. Despite of that, I read in an interview, he was given absolutely full control of HOW to drum on the album, without anyone telling him when to keep his playing restrained so that he doesn't go nuts just because he can. This results in some of the most annoying and least tasteful fills I've ever heard on a major label production - witness "The Tune" for the worst offence, in the prechorus for instance: "Love and *THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK* desire *THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK* Dry ice *THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK* or fire *THUNKTHUNK-THUNKTHUNKTHUNK*. There is little to no sense of good flow and coherence here. As Boris similarly complains, it is highly likely that he was also put in charge of how loud to turn his instrument up in the mix - fuck, this isn't a Helloween album, this is in reality Mikkey Dee's very own drum solo album!! As described above, this is a very "goofy, stupid and fun" sort of album and hiring this guy seems almost like a big joke in itself.
Now you must be thinking "whoawhoawhoa, waitjustaminutehere, SIX hefty paragraphs of negative criticism and still a quite decent rating (by this guy’s standards)?" It's a justified thought for sure, but the explanation for this is actually quite simple. The thing is, that when 'Rabbit' DOES manage to deliver the good stuff, which is at least about half the time, it is as good as ANYTHING they've done. I'm talking totally classic Helloween stuff here; if you like the other albums with Andi Deris, there is certainly something for you here and no bad production, drumming or silly humor can ever take that away from it. For example, "Open Your Life" - whoa, I mean, holy fuck!!! God called, he wants his main riff back. Utterly killer tempo shifting here, in the first half of the first verse and the pre-chorus. Those little lighter, mellower parts that somehow manage not to be annoying by slowing you down, but rather make the heavier parts that directly follow them sound absolutely fucking EXPLOSIVE. Rule, this does. Quite possibly better than anything on the otherwise far superior previous album.
There just isn't too much to say about the good stuff on here, that hasn't been covered in any of my previous reviews for their stuff. It's Helloween, and therefore rules by default. You want song details, check out Nightcrawler's review - but okay, since our scores and opinions differ just slightly, I'll point out the songs that are highlights for me: "Open Your Life" (the best), "Never Be a Star" (total recycle of their own "Perfect Gentleman", but I'll let that pass, still a great song), "Liar" (SPEED METAL!!!), "Do You Feel Good" (simple & sweet barrel o' fun & happiness), "Hell Was Made in Heaven" (SPEED AND POWER METAL!!!) and - surprise - album closer "Nothing to Say". Here we see Helloween trying their hand at a "Victim of Changes"/"Still of the Black Dog"-styled rocker and triumphantly succeeding at it. Say whatever the fuck you will, but even that little "reggae" pre-chorus just fucking WORKS and, just like the one in "Open Your Life", makes the chorus sound as if it jumps RIGHT at ya. "Now we can use all we give all of our loving and affection!!!" Where Edguy's "Lavatory Love Machine" fails, this song succeeds - at going completely out of their style just for some good ol' rock 'n' roll fun and still manage to be all of interesting, inventive and enjoyable, whereas "Lavatory" at best sounds like a mere Poison reject (and I'm not talking from their classic period here, with albums such as 'Open Up and Say...Ahh!', I'm mean from more recent and hideous stuff like 'Hollyweird').
As a matter of fact, since the only REAL dogs on here are "Don't Stop Being Crazy" (meh-ish power ballad) and "Back Against the Wall" (silly attempt at channeling that 90's Pantera/Machine Head groove metal stuff), I'm gonna have to admit this one thing here and now: that even with the relatively high score of 77, I drew off a couple of points from this for about half the tracks being so
disappointing to hear from a band like Helloween, for reasons explained above. While listenable and to an extent enjoyable, these few songs are just not worthy of adding to Helloween's mighty legacy and the album as whole is simply made worse by the knowledge of the brilliant albums it succeeds. Were it a debut album, it would've scored maybe 80. Too bad a debut album of this quality (or higher) would be a rare occurrence these days - unless of course the band in question is the amazing HIBRIA, expect review in the near future!!
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Turned out a bit longer than I expected.