The Dark Ride / Helloween (2000)

1. Beyond The Portal

2. All Over The Nation

3. Mr. Torture

4. Escalation 666

5. Mirror Mirror

6. If I Could Fly

7. Salvation

8. The Departed (Sun Is Going Down)

9. I Live For Your Pain

10. We Damn The Night

11. Immortal

12. The Dark Ride

This album was a controversial one. There were several reasons. The sound of this album is very heavy and dark, so some people said this did not sound like Helloween. Michael Weikath especially did not like this album. He contributed only two songs despite the fact that he wrote more songs. I supposed that the band's situation was not good (In fact, Uli and Roland got fired after the tour of this album). However, this album was one of the records that I listened hundreds times during high school years and still liked it.

I admit that the band's sound became much darker and heavier, yet I do not think they completely lost Helloween essence. Pop essence that Andi brought was still present. In fact, he wrote 6 out of 11 songs. The album contains typical Helloween style power metal songs (Tracks 2 and 6 by Weikath, track 9 by Andi, and title track 11 by Roland) and ballads (Tracks 5 and 10 by Andi). I admit that other songs are not typical Helloween sound that we expect, but they still have good melodies and hook. In fact, track 3 written by Uli was played during Legacy tour. 

I think the impression of the album can be very different by which copy of this album you listen to. Tracks 2 and 3 might be switched depending on which country you bought. I have both issues and compared. The copy with "Mr. Torture" on track 2 gave me impression of the dark sound overall, but the other copy that track list is as written above was not so bad.

I am not here to say that this album is comparable with "Keeper Part I and II" or "The Time Of The Oath". However, I hope this album will get more credit by quality not by expectation of fans.

☆☆☆☆