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Helloween - Gambling With The Devil Audio CD

A fair review of the Helloween "Gambling With The Devil" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Helloween reviews here, or go back to the Helloween tabs.

Helloween Band: Helloween
Title: Gambling With The Devil
Rating:
Release Date: 2008-10-07
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Crack The Riddle (Intro) 2: Kill It 3: The Saints 4: As Long As I Fall 5: Paint A New World 6: Final Fortune 7: The Bells Of The 7 Hells 8: Fallen To Pieces 9: I.M.E. 10: Can Do It 11: Dreambound 12: Heaven Tells No Lies 13: Never Surrender (unreleased track) 14: Revolution (unreleased track) 15: Run (unreleased track) 16: Mrs. God (video) 17: Light The Universe (video) 18: As Long As I Fall (video) 19: Paint A New World (video)

Great album
Some radio-style songs are annoying, but some others really rock. Not Helloween's best, but not disappointing at all. And the guitar work between Waiki and Sastcha is really something else. Your best bet is if you get the version that contains "Find my Freedom" and "We unite" - those songs are better than any other in the "regular edition" album!.


nice album
Ruppert "Ax-Man Steve" except "The Bells Of The Seven Hells" - I love that song!. I agree with S.


More of the uninspired same from quirky german metal outfit.
I spent the extra loot for this deluxe version b/c it was the only version available when I was at the store that day. Helloween (or maybe SPV) saw the need to add bonus content b/c this album is just plain average. On the one hand, I am happy b/c the bonus disc has a couple of songs that are better material than much of the first disc. On the other hand, it is a sad state of affairs when a bonus disc is used to compensate for the poor songs on an album.

The intro (Crack the Riddle), Kill It and The Saints all sound nice and really open the album well. Even though there is no new ground there, even Helloween on auto-pilot is pretty good.

Then all of the sudden I am horrified by the power-ballad As Long As I Fall. Tone shifter on the vocals during the verses makes the song even worse than it could have been. It immediately made me recall why I wrote this band off during the Pink Bubbles/Chameleon era.

Things get back on track with Paint a New World, which is a nice up-tempo rocker. Final Fortune is also pretty good and even had me thinking about why I liked the midtempo songs from the Keeper albums. The only real complaint for Final Fortune is it actually sounds like what I've come to expect from Gamma Ray - not a bad thing at all, but maybe another sign of a Helloween identity crisis.

Just when I think things are going well again, Bells of the 7 Hells come on. This might have been a nice addition to the double disaster 7 keys Legacy album. The title alone gives the impression that it is a leftover for that album. Complete garbage. If I wanted this type of dribble, I would listen to Edguy on a bad day.

Fallen to Pieces is another awful power-ballad. I don't understand, Helloween are the "god-fathers of power metal" and now write very bad heavy metal power ballads. It has a nice change around the 2:50 mark, but much to late to save the song.

I. M. E. is another below-average moment. Not horrible, but nothing remarkable either. The song is 3:44 long and the fade out at the end would have been better if they started the fade at 0:01 into the song. At least I would have wondered if this was a worthwhile song - now I know it is not.

Can Do It - Another example of Helloween trying to take direction from Kai Hansen's Gamma Ray. The problem: Andi Deris sounds horrible on this song, not to mention if this were Gamma Ray, Kai would probably throw this one away as a b-side.

Dreambound has nice guitar work and is one of the highlights of the album. Good job Andi, and the rest of Helloween. Any metal head can easily enjoy this one. It should have been the album closer.

Heaven Tells No Lies starts with a good riff, but it seemed vaguely familiar. Basically, it is another good song that the band pulls of really well. I really liked the rhythm section on this one. There is also some nice clean guitar underneath some of the guitar solo(s) 3 minutes into the song. This one and Dreambound should have been in reverse order.

CD2 - Find My Freedom and See the Night are both excellent songs that should have found their way into CD1. I am not one of the Andi Deris haters out there (I really enjoy the bands finer moments with Andi), but on these two songs he really does sing like Kai Hansen. Maybe that is why they are not on the first CD. Both are blazing good tracks though. The videos for As Long as I Fall and EPK (Making of). Anyone can live without these.

I must say that this album is worth keeping in your collection only if you are really into Helloween. I would not recommend this to any casual fan of the band. This 2 CD version could be an example of why SPV has been experiencing financial difficulty. While it has its moments, there isn't enough good material to warrant the 2 CD format. not to mention all of the audio could have fit on one CD to begin with.

Some may argue against my comparisons to Gamma Ray, but fact of the matter is, Helloween damaged the original 7 keys by releasing the legacy (of which Kai Hansen had no part) then tried to cash in on a live offering of the 7 keys with some of the Kai Hansen written songs mixed into the live set. They they released an album (this one) sounding a little more like Kai Hansen's Gamma Ray than before and to top it all off they go out on tour with "very special guests" Gamma Ray to promote this album. And while Gamma Ray's latest (Land of the Free II) is nothing to write home about, it does magnify the essence of what is missing from Helloween.

I can only imagine that in 5-6 years they will re-release this in a deluxe version with even more bonus tracks. I just hope that we don't get 3-4 versions of As Long As I Fall when that happens.


You can see a complete list of all Helloween discography, or go back to the Helloween tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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