Helloween-Better than raw, 1998

Germany's Helloween are considered one of the creators of the genre known as power metal whether they wanted to credited with that or not. When they first started in the mid-80's the band was originally lumped with the early speed metal scene around 85-86. Then in 1987 the band released Keeper of the seven keys part one and saw a change in style that would have the band on what appeared to be the brink of making it big. Unfortunately metal fell out of favor a few later plus Helloween's main writer Kai Hansen left to form Gamma Ray. This line-up change resulted in the band doing two very erratic albums in the early 90's. Then in 1993 the band changed singers and drummers. New vocalist Andi Deris had a strong voice and the band started off in a new direction. A direction that I feel lasted for three great albums between 1994 and 1998. 'Better than raw" is the last and best of what was likely Helloween's best period. The album surges from start to finish with the band sounding both severely polished, a tad more serious and highly confident in what they were doing. The two previous albums "Time of the oath" and "Master of the rings" saw the band building on their late 80's sound, but adding a layer of heaviness, speed and a sound that soared at times. "Better than raw" sees the band achieving a peak with this approach. The first time I heard this album I was a bit taken aback by how strong it came on. The opening instrumental "Deliberately Limited Preliminary Prelude In Z" is like classical music and gets you feeling a bit calm and then the band throws a real hammer at you as "Push" flies on. Next up "Falling Higher" is a little slower, but no less aggressive in it's approach. "Hey Lord!" is a song that you can tell was designed to be a single, but it's a strong memorable song. The albums slows down a little after that yet it stays on course to be a great one. I wonder if it would have been more successful had it come out a few years later once metal was rising again? We will never know, I am glad it came out and it was certainly one of the best metal albums of the late 1990's. Helloween have done three albums since then and all are good, but not one of them have come close to the level of this release.