Terrible, terrible production......very sad

90s with its groove thrash wave hit Helstar too. It definitely isn't the worst album from this period of time, but far from anything good either. Almost every song seems to be infested with these slow groovy moments with bland, heard-a-thousand-times-before riffs that sort of ruin the songs -- for me at least that's the case. Production is indeed garbage like JÄY pointed out, especially drum sound. the Judas Priest cover is the best song on the album.

After 6 years of the stellar Nosferatu, Helstar sounds like totally different band here. It doesn't matter "what happened?", there's nothing that can explain away the shortcomings of this album. MOVE ALONG PEOPLE.

^ I don't remember this album being so bad, I'm gonna make time for a re-listen really soon.

Written by JoHn Doe on 20.04.2020 at 00:08

^ I don't remember this album being so bad, I'm gonna make time for a re-listen really soon.

Maybe it's not bad album at all, could be that I'm just exception and am personally pissed off because I think this particular sounding music was the demise of many 80s thrash bands before they called quits. But it's must have been the record companies that pushed the bands to take this musical direction, there is no way all band's wanted to stop playing classic thrash by their own choice during 90s.

^ I'm half way through and I like it, great vocal performance and the playing is tight. New direction never bothered me.

Written by JoHn Doe on 20.04.2020 at 13:42

^ I'm half way through and I like it, great vocal performance and the playing is tight. New direction never bothered me.

Even if I liked the album I'd never consider the album good. I have heard this same album with a different title many times (I listened some 500-1000 thrash albums between the years 2009-2013), if you get what I mean; it's not original music, so many thrash bands in the 90s did this exact thing with exactly same sounding production. I don't think any album from that period was superb, not even Metallica's or Pantera's whom the others were copycatting.

Written by Joppe on 20.04.2020 at 14:27

Written by JoHn Doe on 20.04.2020 at 13:42

^ I'm half way through and I like it, great vocal performance and the playing is tight. New direction never bothered me.

Even if I liked the album I'd never consider the album good. I have heard this same album with a different title many times (I listened some 500-1000 thrash albums between the years 2009-2013), if you get what I mean; it's not original music, so many thrash bands in the 90s did this exact thing with exactly same sounding production. I don't think any album from that period was superb, not even Metallica's or Pantera's whom the others were copycatting.

I never talked about this album in superlatives, well just the vocal performance. I only said that I like it.
I think we have different expectations about music. I could listen to something that is unoriginal if the playing and singing is competent. The only thing that may bother me is if it's too predictable (heard it all before and better).

Written by JoHn Doe on 20.04.2020 at 15:12

I could listen to something that is unoriginal if the playing and singing is competent. The only thing that may bother me is if it's too predictable (heard it all before and better).

Yes if it's really good, then I agree, I can listen to it, I can enjoy it and I won't call it out as I did with this album. If it's cookie-cutter songs like here that don't really shine at all, then what else can I really say than that it's a dispensable album. I tried it a few times, forget all about it right after listening and if I have a choice to listen to this or something else I go with the latter option.

I never paid attention to anything Helstar released after Nosferatu (except for a spin or two of Vampiro and The King of Hell), so this one is new to me. It's a very short album (if you exclude the Judas Priest cover it's under 30 minutes of music) with a horrible production. It's one of those albums where it's hard to tell how good the songs are because of the production. I think (?) most of the songs here would be average/ above average with a proper sound mix to enchance the overall impression, but as it's now it feels like Helstar-light, no out of this world riffing and over the top leads.