Band:	Helloween
Album:	High Live
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	1996
Guest review by:	Spyroid

Disc I
01. We Burn
02. Wake up The Mountain
03. Sole Survivor
04. The Chance
05. Why?
06. Eagle Fly Free
07. The Time Of The Oath
08. Future World
09. Dr.Stein

Disc II
01. Before The War
02. Mr. Ego
03. Power
04. Where The Rain Grows
05. In The Midlle Of A Heartbeat
06. Perfect Gentleman
07. Steel Tormertor

So Helloween thought it was time to put out a live album again! After the stumbling first albums with the new singer Andi Deris they recorded 'High Live' at three different venues, one in Italy and two in Spain. Maybe that has to do with the quality of this album? Because I honestly think it's one of the weakest efforts by one of my favourite bands. Still, there are actually some good things to say about the album, so lets start with them.

First of all the booklet is very good; there is plenty of information like a crew list, a list of all dates on the tour, lyrics to all featured songs (yes, on a live album!) and plenty of pictures of the band. There's even small numbers on each page like in a magazine or book. So far it looks good. The good things you can hear on the actual album are fewer, but the crowds are great and the performance is not bad at all. It's also very fun to hear a live version of the great 'The Chance' which isn't played live at all nowadays.

Now, let's take a look at the bad stuff. The cover art is ugly and looks like it was made in MS Paint. That might not be important, but it displays the album very well; it's all just something put together very fast to market the two latest albums. The booklet is just a camouflage. It was probably put together in a few hours. For example, on the backside you can find two tracks that at least I hadn't heard of before - 'Soul Survivor' and 'Eagle Fly, Free'... Come on, you have to spell your own tracks correct if you want to be taken seriously! The production is not exactly perfect either - 'High Live' really seems like a hasty album.

With the exceptions of three 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys' classics and 'The Chance', every track is from 'Time Of The Oath' or 'Master Of The Rings' which I believe to be the worst Helloween albums, so the tracklist is not really appealing to me. Even if they mostly picked the better tracks from these albums. If you like them, you might even like this album but otherwise don't make the mistake of buying it. Probably the last Helloween release you should buy. And the rating goes over average only because of the performance.