It is hard to believe My God-Given Right is the 15th full-length album (17 if you count the Metal Jukebox covers album and Keeper of the Seven Keys – The Legacy re-recording) from Germany's Power Metal pioneers Helloween. I can still remember like it was yesterday when I found Walls of Jericho in the import bin on vinyl back in 1985 and bought it based on the cover alone. It remains my greatest "find" to this day.
Back to the present and My God-Given Right. The Andy Deris-era has been going strong since 1994's Master of the Rings and he continues to exert more and more control over the direction of the band. Helloween, if you've been living under a rock for the last 30 years, pretty much started double-kick Power Metal and My God-Given Right wouldn't be a Helloween album without at least a couple of songs in that vein. Enter tracks like "Battle's Won" and "Claws," the former with the kind of catchy chorus that ensures its place in the band's live set list for years to come. Shortly after "Battle's Won" (track 2) Helloween's well-known penchant for being silly kicks in with tracks like "Stay Crazy" and "Lost in America," both with goofy lyrics, and "Russian Roule" sung with a "see what we did there?" attitude. One song like this would be OK but three is annoying. It isn't until about halfway through the disc that things pick up again. The ballad "Like Everybody Else" avoids the cliché arena-rock, sway-with-your-lighter style quite successfully, "Creatures in Heaven" features an unusual riff before settling in with a more typical structure and "If God Loves Rock 'n' Roll" starts like something from the Keepers era. Everything is pitch-perfect and we expect nothing less from these veterans.
The first half of My God-Given Right took more than a few spins to start to sink in and I still prefer the second half unconditionally but where I was initially ready to pan the album it is actually enjoyable. I'd like a few more "happy" tracks like "Battle's Won" but that's just me. There's some quite good stuff on My God-Given Right to go along with some filler but on the whole it's a pretty good album.
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