Metal Friday – Hammerfall & Helloween

Hammerfall - Steel Meets Steel: Ten Years Of Glory
I don’t often review the “best of” collections that come here, but Hammerfall is not a household name. Should be. The musicianship is excellent, the song composition, tho retro, is well done. The focus of these guys as songwriters appears to be an age of glory with heroes,swords & dragons. Pure fanstasy, pure fun. Hammerfall

Helloween - Gambling With The Devil
These folks are much more well known, a great group of musicians from Germany. While I might quarrel with their theology, that’s not what makes for good music. I admit I am not enthralled by people encouraging young folks to gamble with the devil – the truth is Dante wrote a long treatise on Hell that is not supposed to steal a young man’s faith. These guys are definite masters of the genre, and perform with an intensity worth enjoying. As I listen along to these guys, I kinda get the message that they feel the gamblers will win. “The saints are marching again and harvest souls/the saints are marching again in harmony”, and “I Don’t Know If Heaven Tells No Lies” give new the impression that they are leading the listener into different mindscapes worthy of the journey. A youngster needs to question their faith so that they become stronger on their understanding of why they believe what they believe. If a pop group leads them “astray”, chances are very good their faith was not deeply rooted in truth. Helloween