Million Dollar Haircuts on Ten Cent Heads

Andi Deris stands out as one of my all-time favorite metal musicians. He not only serves as my preferred Helloween vocalist (although my enduring admiration for Kiske and Hansen persists), but I also hold him in high regard as a prolific and esteemed songwriter. Beyond his impressive 4-octave vocal range and the enchanting, versatile timbre of his voice, Deris demonstrates an incredible prowess as both a lyricist and composer, contributing significantly in terms of both quality and quantity. If you check out the song credits after he joined Helloween, you'll see he's the reason the band survived and is still going strong. He not only wrote most of the material, especially in his first ten years with the band, but he also took the reins as the leader, not just the frontman. Even today, he's still driving the ship, contributing to at least half of the songs on every album he's part of, either as the sole writer or co-writer. Despite all this, he's somehow underrated in the metal scene and doesn't get the credit he deserves.

In recent years, however, there seems to be a noticeable decline in Deris' wellspring of ideas and inspiration. This is entirely natural and understandable given his extensive discography, encompassing three albums with Pink Cream 69, numerous releases with Helloween, and three solo projects - he's not a robot. Many of his peers have struggled to match even a quarter of his output, let alone the quality thereof.

Initially, I approached the album with a lower rating than I ultimately settled on. Listening to it during the writing of this review, I realized that it doesn't fall into the category of "really bad.". It dropped in 2013, and it feels like Deris started showing signs of running low on inspiration around this time. However, it's crucial to clarify that I'm not saying he suddenly started writing terrible songs, but they just went from super cool and awesome all-time classics to just okay tunes. By the way, I consider this his third solo album, even if it's under a different name.

Owning a private professional studio in Tenerife, where he resides and where Helloween has recorded many albums, Deris enlisted the talents of his son's friends' band for this release. I appreciate his decision to provide an opportunity for unknown musicians to participate in a professional release, as opposed to recruiting established or already professional musicians.

Always socially and politically conscious, Deris drew inspiration from the recent economic crisis in Southern Europe, particularly in Spain, Italy, and Greece. The album serves as a response to his disgust at a system that prioritizes the interests of banks and the upper class at the expense of the lower classes and ordinary citizens. Not every song on the album is about that, but it was the main motivation behind creating it.

Most of the songs on this album wouldn't find a place in a Helloween release, making it a logical choice for a solo project. You've got some nu-metal vibes, some more modern/alternative stuff, and a sprinkle of pop/rock, with a modern and nu production aesthetic. However, the issue lies not in the stylistic choices but rather in the deviation from Deris' usual high inspirational standards. Some forgettable tunes, mediocre vocal melodies, basic guitar riffs, and solos that don't stick with you after the track ends. The band does a decent job, though, and it's not on them. It just feels like Andi might've run out of really killer ideas and expected the album to be better than it turned out.

Now, there are a few songs that I really dig. "Cock" is this catchy nu-metal track with lyrics going after bankers and the powerful. It's a total departure from Andi's usual style, both lyrically and musically. Another one I'm into is "Don't Listen To The Radio," a more rockish tune. "Enamoria" is solid too—it was released as a single before the album to raise awareness for breast cancer under the name of Lady's Voice meets Friends. "Blind" is my fourth pick of really good songs on the album, and the rest are just okay.

To wrap it up, I'd like to share my overall perspective on albums like this. If you're a die-hard fan like me, chances are you'll find some enjoyment in it, one way or another. However, if you're not particularly interested, I wouldn't prioritize putting this high on your to-listen list. Despite the slight disappointment, it's important to note one more time that it's far from being a bad album. I always appreciate the opportunity to hear new material from my favourite artists, even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of their previous work. Discovering a few standout tracks, experiencing the familiar voice of one of my favourite singers in new songs, and witnessing them explore a different style is always preferable to having nothing at all.

Fourteen years after his first two solo outputs, Andi Deris of Helloween, Pink Cream 69 and Kymera fame comes around with a new project under the banner of Andi Deris and The Bad Bankers. Andi Deris got together with three Spanish musicians in his Tenerife based studio and recorded a few songs that wouldn’t fit to Helloween. The result is sarcastically entitled Million Dollar Haircuts On Ten Cent Heads.

As you might guess, a few lyrics are influenced by Europe’s current financial crisis. This is the case for the angry nu metal driven opener “Cock” that surprises with a few industrial sounds and is probably the most outstanding song on this record. “Banker’s Delight (Dead Or Alive)” hits the same vein and is driven by aggressive disharmonic riffs and a few more floating and melodic bridges in between. Along with the catchy rocker “Don’t Listen To The Radio (TWOTW 1938)” with its interesting lyrics these three songs are the ones that really stand out on this release.

The rest of the record is surprisingly mellow or even utterly bad. We get to hear oddities between some more or less hard rock inspired songs like “Will We Ever Change” that has some parts reminding me of Alice Cooper and several atmospheric mid-paced alternative rock sounds like “Blind” that reminds me of several half-hearted Helloween ballads that would rather fit on a 30 Seconds to Mars output.

After a good start, the album gets very boring in the second half. The songs remain superficial and are almost all hold in a sleepy mid tempo pace. They can’t really touch me from an emotional point of view or surprise me from the technical side. Many tracks are also too long against their own good. In most songs, everything is said after three minutes or even less but the tracks are stretched to lengths between four and more than six minutes and start getting on your nerves. This is a problem which many metal bands seem to share. The closing acoustic track “I Sing Myself Away” is even completely useless in only two minutes and a half and ends the record on a bitter note.

In the end, this album is rather lifeless and of an average quality at best. Only faithful Andi Deris fans, if they are somewhere out there in the world, should give this release a try but this definitely isn’t his finest hour. European power metal fans won’t probably like this more rock driven record and should stay away from this. It seems that Andi Deris already used his best song ideas on the last Helloween records and this is only a filler release of unconvincing material between two albums of Germany’s power metal legend. If Andi Deris waited another fourteen years to release his next solo record, nobody would really care about it and the material could only get better.

Originally written for The Metal Observer