Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Thirty years on from the opening salvo and the declaration of war on British and American dominance on Heavy Metal, thirty years since the Walls of Jericho came tumbling down under the pressure of guitar riffs being played as if Joshua’s trumpet had been misinformed of its exact duty in life, the pumpkins of Helloween are reborn once more in arguably the band’s finest and certainly critically advanced album since The Keeper of The Seven Keys Part II.
My God Given Right is not just a return but yet another statement of intent that the Helloween name is to be revered for being one of the Godfathers of the German Heavy Metal brigade that has swept the continent and really thrived in comparison, with certain exceptions, to the British and American markets.
The signs were there in the band’s previous release that the music was once more being played as if it mattered, that the slow decline that has hit many a band who arrived in the great silver age of the genre, was having its serious toll on the health of the band had been reversed and the injection of new blood had become infused with a passion that made the aforementioned The Keeper of The Seven Keys Part II such an invaluable asset to the world of music.
Although the latest release doesn’t quite hit the heights that that magical time insisted would never end, it is however an album that really damns the soul of anyone too quick to dismiss the art, especially in Europe, of being of no consequence anymore. Tracks such as Battle’s Won, the demanding truth that lays in Stay Crazy, Lost In America, Creatures in Heaven and the bitterness of Claws attain such heights of inspiration and perspiration that the band’s long time emblem, the groovy and almost demonic pumpkin couldn’t be more sweaty if it had been placed on a treadmill with a juicer hurling abuse and taunting it with an empty carton by its side.
The pumpkin may have been waning during the late 90s and the early part of the 21st century but My God Given Right is clean, crisp, powerful and rocks harder than a child discovering the joys of a rocking chair going at full pelt and without the aid of a safety net to catch them. The pumpkin is reborn, Helloween are once more the kings of European Metal.
Ian D. Hall