Band:	Helloween
Album:	Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	October 31, 2005
Guest review by:	Talvi

Disc I
01. The King For A 1000 Years
02. The Invisible Man
03. Born On Judgment Day
04. Pleasure Drone
05. Mrs. God
06. Silent Rain

Disc II
01. Occasion Avenue
02. Light The Universe [feat. Candice Night]
03. Do You Know What You're Fighting For
04. Come Alive
05. Shade In The Shadow
06. Get It Up
07. My Life For One More Day
08. Revolution [Japan bonus]
+ Mr. God [video][Russian Edition bonus]

Helloween are the godfathers of Power metal. Keeper of the Seven Keys, especially the second part, is the the Holy Grail of Power metal. But it doesn't matter who dares to touch it, anyone who takes a classic and tries to make it better really has guts. It takes a very strong will to take a name as Keeper of the Seven Keys and make a third part of it. Now, those who oppose may say 3 things: that Helloween is already dead; that you can't do it without Michael Kiske; that you can't do it without Kai Hansen.

Of course, Helloween isn't dead. They showed it mainly on the Dark Ride, being that the best Helloween effort ever, beating their own classics. As I've said before, Andi Deris to me is the true voice of Helloween. He is metal. He is powerful. And if he doesn't have the range Kiske has, his distinctive voice fits much better to the Helloween sound. The only fault here is that Kai Hansen isn't here. Even Helloween has managed to survive without him, you can't deny that he is an amazing music and songwriter. So did they do it?

They did it. Helloween really did it. They have showed us that they were gods of power metal before, and they still are. In my opinion, this album is probably overall as good as any of the two original Keepers. It's far more solid than those. The bad songs here are not filler. But the excellent songs just don't reach the musical mastery of epics like Halloween and songs like March of Time. Even though, the overall quality is much better. The goofy songs are very good, especially the single Mrs. God. The hits are awesome, like The Invisible Man. The other songs are also of high quality, like Pleasure Drone and The Shade in the Shadows, which both have the best chorus here. The epics are amazing, even though it's risky having both of them as openers.

That brings as another topic: Why two cds instead of just one? Maybe it's so the bonus track, Revelation (a very good song, I recommend getting it if you can) could fit. Or maybe it's for revenge. Let's remember Helloween wanted to make both the classic Keeper albums as a double cd album, but they couldn't.

Another highlight is the diversity of sounds. The sound is much more progressive and diverse than before. Usually, Helloween had on almost every album, 3-5 minutes songs, with 1 epic, probably 2, that lasted a bit longer. But check the songs on this album: 2 epics. 3 long songs. 4 of average length, 3 short ones, and 1 ballad. Helloween never had an album that was so rich, even though I'd add one more ballad here. But Light the Universe is probably their best ballad, at least with Andi Deris.

So well, here we have the renewed Helloween, improving their already awesome classics into a new one. And well, as a final note, forget the name of the album. Many people just despise it because they don't like it as much as the original Keepers. Just remember, the music it's what it counts. And here, there is very good music.