Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Helloween
Label: EMI Records
Released: 1993
Runtime: 71:26
Rating: 3.5/5
»Chameleon« is without a doubt the most controversial album in Helloween’s entire history. ‘True’ metalheads hate it from the bottom of their souls, and even among the (traditional) fans of this Hamburg heavy metal institution, at least 90% would happily forget it ever came out. To the universal horror of the stern metal police, some tracks on this truly chameleonic experiment even feature saxophones and orchestration, which is simply unheard of for the most important band in the story of European power metal. But all those listeners who don’t count themselves among the ‘true’ metalheads, or just don’t sweat it, will find plenty of interesting and fun stuff on »Chamelon« even after the test of time.
In the early nineties Helloween were going through a pretty rough patch, and it showed in the creative process between the band members. After signing with EMI it looked like all the stars were aligned and they might even become the biggest European metal attraction after Iron Maiden. Then all the plans went down the drain with the change of musical direction on the previous album, the below-average experiment »Pink Bubbles Go Ape« (1991), where, under producer Chris Tsangarides, they tried to move away from their trademark power metal and started experimenting big time with influences from other genres.
That attempt to reel in a wider audience flopped rather miserably despite a few rare flashes of compositional brilliance, and on top of that the grunge invasion had already kicked off and power metal fell out of commercial favor for a while. Helloween’s three main songwriters, then-singer Michael Kiske, founding guitarist Michael Weikath and his fellow guitarist Roland Grapow, had different ideas about which musical direction to take the band in. EMI was the one demanding they drop, among other things, their then totally signature ‘happy metal’ humorous touches, which left everybody standing on the opposite creative bank.
Kiske, who after getting mixed up with a bizarre religious sect was slowly losing touch with reality and becoming more and more of an enigma to the rest of the band, never hid his love of pop rock and easygoing power ballads. Weikath, equally fed up to the back teeth with the power metal that Helloween ‘invented’ in 1987, listened to a lot of the Beatles and seventies progressive rock records while making »Chamelon«, and it shows strongly in some of the songs. The great virtuoso Grapow had a similar vision and, besides long-winded guitar variations, swore mostly by hard rock. Thanks to three completely different driving forces, »Chameleon« could easily be called a three-part solo project, even though it had a much better production than its predecessor, courtesy of the returning Tommy Hansen, with whom they’d worked successfully on their eighties classics.
As you’d expect, the metal maniacs’ perceptions of this album turned out to be wrong once time had had its say. It’s the most varied album in their story, even if not every idea landed. Its one big flaw is the sheer amount of more or less saccharine power ballads: there are as many as four on »Chameleon«, which is somehow too many even by usual Helloween standards, where at least one love ballad has almost never been missing. On the other hand, the album is an extremely interesting genre mishmash that reflects the creative twists and turns of those three key members. Unlike »Pink Bubbles Go Ape«, which was a more or less tasteless pile of countless half-baked ideas thrown together in a hurry, this time Helloween were far more convincing in their genre-hopping, much like Queen, one of their main role models, used to do. Thanks to that variety, the album has hard rock experiments (»First Time«, »Revolution Now«), a hard rock/jazz hybrid (»Crazy Cat«), AOR ballads such as »I Don’t Wanna To Cry No More«, prog metal (»Music«), prog/pop fusion crossovers like »When The Sinner«, and also their signature power metal with Kiske’s high vocal registers (»Giants«, »Step Out Of Hell« and »I Believe«). The idea for the totally minimalist, unpretentious cover came from Kiske, while the comical pumpkins had to come back at the fans’ demand.
»First Time« is a pretty unconventional opener by Helloween standards up to that point, since there’s no orchestral or acoustic intro like on the earlier records. Instead they straight away serve up a solid fusion of hard rock and AOR with a decent chorus, a mouthwatering Weikath solo and a dynamic guitar riff that admittedly has little to do with the power metal that made them world famous, but is exactly the stylistic refresh they badly needed. »When The Sinner«, which also came out as a single, could jokingly be labeled ‘pop metal’, though it’s really a pop/prog rock hybrid: a hugely fun fusion of electronic synth lines and blazing guitar passages with a melodic chorus cleverly draped over the top and, the horror of horrors for every true metal maniac, a horn section! Kiske is in great vocal shape throughout, maybe even at the peak of his career when it comes to vocal versatility, even though he no longer wants to sing in the high registers on every track, like a Geoff Tate (Queensryche) doppelganger.
»I Don’t Wanna Cry No More«, the album’s second single, is a pretty sugary power ballad dedicated to Roland’s brother Rainer, with lovely acoustic guitar arrangements. With the synth backdrop and superb vocal lines, its nostalgic and slightly goofy lyrics are just right for a song that, had it come out only five years earlier when AOR was at its peak, might even have had some nice commercial success. »Crazy Cat« is one of the weirder and more playful experiments, with hard rock, jazz (the sax arrangements are back again) and even swing, though it has a fairly traditional, if not power metal, chorus and even a couple of triple-guitar harmonies.
»Giants«, whose lyrics are about the fight between Helloween’s former label Noise and EMI over the copyright to the band’s image and work, is a short but triumphant return to the epic power metal of the »Keeper« era, the kind traditional fans waited for in vain on all the other »Chameleon« tracks. Pompous guitar harmonies and mighty drum fills from the late Ingo Schwichtenberg come together with an epic chorus. This time Kiske is back in the high registers, soaring like a supersonic jet, and he successfully challenges both the aforementioned Tate and Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden). It’s actually one of the punchiest and most epic songs in their history, with two phenomenal guitar solos, which means they hadn’t completely ‘sold out’ after all, as many traditional fans claimed when »Chameleon« came out.
»Windmill«, the third single from the album, is yet another love power ballad with a tender melody and melancholic folk-rock arrangements (you can even hear a mandolin) that might have found its way to Eurovision somewhere in the mid-eighties. It’s hard to imagine a more untraditional Helloween song, and despite the overly saccharine chorus, it’s an outstanding achievement arrangement-wise. The more-than-eight-minute »Revolution Now«, where Kiske shines again with enviably high vocal registers, is a pretty schizophrenic cross between prog and hard rock with plenty of raging guitar variations. It could easily have been half as long, though Weikath, who wrote the lyrics under heavy influence from sixties bands, once again came up with some very interesting ideas.
Kiske’s »In The Night« doesn’t really work: it’s another acoustic-leaning power ballad with unconventional piano flourishes that has absolutely nothing to do with metal. It has a slow, almost psychedelic start, and then draws its inspiration from a cheesy melody and a sugar-coated chorus. »Music«, where Markus Grosskopf’s dynamic bass lines come through really nicely, is the easiest one to call a prog metal experiment, with plenty of bombastic arrangements, epic guitar harmonies and a mighty chorus. It’s more than obvious that this solid composition is Grapow’s work, since his solo guitar orgasming almost crosses the line of good taste.
»Step Out Of Hell«, yet another single, could sit on any of the »Keeper« albums: with its epic structure, intricate rhythmic nuances and Kiske at the peak of his vocal game, it’s another return to the ‘happy, happy Helloween’ power metal waters. On the hard-hitting »I Believe«, too, where an almost brutal guitar riff rules alongside the pompous chorus, Helloween are back in their recognizable, trademark form, just as traditional fans always expect from them, even if the whole thing is stretched out by a good three to four minutes too many. To close the album, Kiske serves up one more acoustic, salt-sprinkled ballad called »Longing«, in which he expresses the homesickness that the long, grueling tours stirred up in him back then. It ends up being the best ballad on the album, with mighty orchestral arrangements standing out in particular.
»Chameleon«, a short detour into ‘prog/pop metal’, is the most eclectic album in Helloween’s entire history, and in pumping in fresh ideas it took a lot of guts and a willingness to walk away from the usual, expected, demanded power metal routine. Its main virtue is precisely that, even though not every idea landed perfectly, it’s so different from the usual Helloween output. Sadly it didn’t achieve the success they were after on the European market, while in America in 1993 people didn’t even know this unique record had come out. As expected, many traditional fans were disappointed by the far too radical stylistic departure, so after the tour things couldn’t end well for this incarnation of the band. Kiske was the second of the two ‘problematic members’ to pack his bags, so he could focus on a rather inconsistent solo career and later on a range of more successful side projects such as Place Vendome, Avantasia and Unisonic. Schwichtenberg got fired from the band, sank completely into drugs and depression, and it ended tragically for him when he jumped in front of a train. »The Time Of The Oath« (1996), the second of the next two Helloween albums on which they returned very successfully to power metal after the arrival of singer Andi Deris (ex-Pink Cream 69) and drummer Uli Kusch (ex-Holy Moses, Gamma Ray), was dedicated to his memory.
Lineup
Michael Kiske – vocals
Michael Weikath – guitar
Roland Grapow – guitar
Markus Grosskopf – bass
Ingo Schwichtenberg – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Alex Bergstedt – choir conductor, church organ on “I Believe”
Children’s choir ‘Johann Sebastian Bach’, Hamburg, on “I Believe”
Stefan Pintev – violin
Production
Tommy Hansen
Tracklist
1. First Time
2. When the Sinner
3. I Don’t Wanna Cry No More
4. Crazy Cat
5. Giants
6. Windmill
7. Revolution Now
8. In the Night
9. Step Out of Hell
10. I Believe
11. Longing
