Master of The Rings (1994)
A very crucial album in Helloween’s career. After the flop of the Chameleon record they have another lineup change. Out goes Michael Kiske and Ingo and in comes Andi Deris and Uli Kusch. Right away Andi makes his impact here as far as singing and songwriting goes. The album did really well for the band and was a “comeback” album of sorts. More in the style and direction of what Helloween is all about, Master Of The Rings jumpstarted the band’s career again with great classics such as “Sole Survivor”, “Where The Rain Grows” and “Perfect Gentleman”. One of the catchiest anthems the band ever wrote, the alluring “Why?”, complete with a soaring Deris vocal and plenty of tasty guitar solos. There’s even a nice mix of prog and shred guitar on the crunchy “Mr. Ego (Take Me Down)”, and both Michael Weikath & Roland Grapow again weave some fancy guitar licks on the quirky metal piece “Secret Alibi”. However, it’s always the blistering speed numbers and beefy thrash tunes that fans seem to relate to the best when it comes to Helloween, so crank up the volume and get ready to headbang along with songs like “Take Me Home” and “Still We Go”. Michael Weikath has always describe this album as “very american” sounding as far as the songwriting is concerned. Overall a very solid effort with many classic Helloween tracks.
Japanese version contains a book of pictures and two bonus tracks. “Can’t Fight Your Desire”, and “Grapowski’s Malmsuite 1001 (In D-Doll)”. German version has a bonus interview disk in German with “Cold Sweat” as a bonus track, and the other Euro version contains a bonus disk with the songs “I Stole Your Love”, and “Closer To Home” (Which Roland sings on). The American one came out on Halloween 1995 with a bonus disk that had all 7 B-sides from the Master Of The Rings recording sessions.
Tracklist:
1. Irritation (Weikath) 1:14
2. Sole Survivor (Weikath/Deris) 4:33
3. Where The Rain Grows (Weikath/Deris) 4:46
4. Why? (Deris) 4:11
5. Mr. Ego (Take Me Down) (Grapow) 7:02
6. Perfect Gentleman (Deris/Weikath) 3:53
7. The Game Is On (Weikath) 4:40
8. Secret Alibi (Weikath) 5:49
9. Take Me Home (Grapow) 4:25
10. In The Middle Of a Heartbeat (Deris/Weikath) 4:30
11. Still We Go (Grapow) 5:09
Total Running Time: 50:19
RecordeRING and MixeRING at Chateau Du Pape Hamburg 1994
MasteRING by Ian Cooper at Metropolis, London England
ProduceRING by Tommy Hansen and Helloween
MixeRING by Tommy Hansen
Sound EngineeRING by Michael Tibes
ArtworkRING by Fredrick Moulaert
PhotographeRING by George Chin
Uli Kusch (DrummeRING)
Markus Grosskopf (BasseRING)
Andi Deris (SingeRING)
Roland Grapow (GuitaRING and SingeRING)
Michael Weikath (GuitaRING)
