«Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part I» is Helloween’s second album and it was released on 23 May 1987 by Noise Records. The recordings ran from November 1986 to January 1987 at Horus Sound Studio in Hanover, with Tommy Newton and Tommy Hansen producing. The line-up was Michael Kiske on vocals, Kai Hansen and Michael Weikath on guitars, Markus Grosskopf on bass and Ingo Schwichtenberg on drums.
“`Country: Germany
Style: Power Metal
For fans of: Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray, Rage
The album is Michael Kiske’s first appearance on vocals, after Kai Hansen stepped back from the microphone because he wanted to concentrate on the guitar. It is one of the records that created European power metal: fast, melodic songs, high vocals, twin guitars and big, epic choruses. Weikath took less part in the recordings because of illness, so Hansen had the final say in the songwriting.
The album opens with «Initiation» and «I’m Alive». «Future World», which came out as a single on 13 April 1987, «A Little Time», «A Tale That Wasn’t Right» and «Twilight of the Gods» stand out. The centrepiece is «Halloween», a thirteen-minute track that got a video in a shortened version.
Helloween had planned «Keeper of the Seven Keys» as a double album, but the label insisted it come out as two separate parts. The first record reached number 15 in Germany and went gold, while it earned a place on lists of the most important power metal albums of all time. The two parts were reissued together as a double CD in 1993, with bonus tracks — Helloween – Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II had closed the circle six years earlier.
See also
See also: Kai Hansen – «Born With A Hammer» and Blind Guardian – The God Machine.
