The end of an era. Helloween’s Y2K album is the last to feature the second “classic” lineup of Weikath/Deris/Grosskopf/Grapow/Kusch. It marks a turning point: post-The Dark Ride, Helloween becomes, though not bad, more streamlined, less risk-averse, and (in my view) less interesting.
To dispatch with the obvious, no, this isn’t “nu metal” Helloween. It has some downtuned, tonally dark songs, but they mostly seem patterned after Dio/Martin-era Black Sabbath more than, say Korn.
It’s definitely confused. I’ll say that much. The band doesn’t fully commit to their new, dark style, writing a bunch of classic-style songs as well, turning the album into a bit of a patchwork. The Dark Ride is an odd, contradictory amphibian of an album that seems to exist in the sunlight and under the starless sky at the same time, with the tracklisting throwing every tonal mismatch into sharp relief. You have basically the floweriest song ever written under the Helloween imprimature (“All Over the Nations”) right next to arguably the darkest one (“Escalation 666”). “Mr Torture” is a perfect opening, “The Dark Ride” a perfect closer, but otherwise you could jumble the songs at random and get a more cohesive listening experience.
Grapow/Kusch really start driving the band here—to their detriment, as creative conflicts would soon lead to them being ousted (Grapow, 2005: “We weren’t really a band anymore and struggled with tons of issues along the way, it was best for us to leave and aim for new goals.”). They write a ton of songs, and according to Grapow, virtually all the guitar work here is his. At the same time, they were also amassing some songs that never made the album, and were later featured on the debut album of their next band, Masterplan. (You can really imagine “Into the Light” on this album, being sung by Deris.)
Kusch’s “Mr Torture” is one of the all-time Helloween opening songs. Punchy, tight, catchy, accessible, it rolls and bounces along, verses propelled by jagged runs of double-bass, the chorus opening wide up, and the bridge illuminated by a short but flashy Grapow guitar solo that lights the song on fire. Great track.
The lyrics are pretty weird, portraying some kind of…torture entrepeneur? “You can catch him on his website / Has a live chat every weeknight / Cyber-torture soon coming your way!” Well, it wouldn’t be a year 2000 album without gratuitous internet references, I suppose. (Viz Britney Spears’ “Email My Heart”)
Then Weikath’s “All Over the Nations” arrives: a fast, melodic, somewhat generic power metal track, it sounds literally nothing like the preceding or following song. Other than Deris’s vocals and Roy Z’s murky but textured production (which proves to be the glue holding The Dark Ride‘s disparate shards together), you wouldn’t even think this and “Mr Torture” were from the same album. Not offensive, but definitely a bit lightweight and “Helloween done by committee”.
Two things are noticeable about The Dark Ride: first, it’s really, really good. Possibly superior to Better than Raw, which might make it the best Helloween album ever, aside from Walls of Jericho and The Keepers.
Second, the different songwriters are really, really, really not on the same page anymore. Grapow and Kusch want darkness, Weikath stubbornly cleaves to the “happy happy Helloween” template, and Deris has a foot in both camps. Markus Grosskopf sticks to playing bass, and doesn’t write a song this time (although his composition “Deliver Us” appears on various bonus editions, and suggests he was of one mind with the Grapow/Kusch contingent.)
Grapow’s “Escalation 666” is one of the band’s most crushing and experimental tracks. A doom metal paced trudge through some inner mindscape of madness, it’s not a song, it’s a black hole yawning at the album’s core. The chugging, C-standard (I think?) opening riff sounds supernova-heavy, and the dissonant, effects-laden guitar solo reminds me of “Bleeding Eyes” off that first Masterplan album. It’s not the greatest song on the album, but it’s never far from my thoughts.
Andi Deris proves to be hit or miss like usual, writing two certified classics (the piano-driven single “If I Could Fly” and the flighty, foot-on-the-gas adventure of “We Damn the Night”) and two stinkers. “Mirror Mirror” and “I Live For Your Pain” are just chuggy, downtuned nothingburgers with mediocre ideas and no sense of catchiness or energy. Skip-button fodder. Like Helloween trying to be a grunge rock band or something.
His bonus track “Madness of the Crowds” is a fascinating “one idea” type song, pairing quiet verses with explosive choruses (and some intriguing knifing symphonic stabs). “Immortal” is the closest we have to a torch ballad. Not bad, but a bit slender when compared with Kusch’s “The Departed”, which we just heard a few minutes earlier.
The album concludes with Grapow’s “The Dark Ride”, a monolithic speed epic that’s like a tombstone for this era of the band. Beginning with the (somewhat stale) motif of amusement park sounds, it’s a bit long, but when the ideas come, they really come. Grapow really loves octave-skipping tremolo riffs (like in the pre-chorus: “Out of doubt, no hope / Satan feeds our madness”), but so do I. The guitar solo section is just straight-up Yngwie Malmsteen worship. Some of the last he ever did.
This is one of those spikey albums where the flaws are evident but the strengths are so good that even if I’m bitching about it half the time, I still love it. This is an incredibly special and important record to me. One last triumph of power metal before Y2K shut the world down.
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