The 14th studio album from venerable German power metal outfit Helloween kicks off with the blistering "Nabatea," a typically ambitious, seven-minute epic concerning a kingdom of nomadic, Mediterranean, peace-loving folks swallowed up by the Roman Empire in AD 106.
From there, truncated history lessons are put on the back burner in favor of a more traditional, Keeper of the Seven Keys-era Helloween approach, offering up immaculate blasts of impossibly tuneful, power/neo-classical metal with humor ("Asshole"), apocalyptic glee ("World of War"), and an unapologetic love for all things Iron Maiden ("Far from the Stars").
Brighter, broader, and a good deal lighter in tone than 2010's ominous 7 Sinners, Straight Out of Hell (definitely not Compton) finds Helloween resting on its laurels a bit, but should nonetheless please longtime fans with its huge, soaring choruses and reliably strong musicianship.
[A version was released with two bonus tracks, "Another Shot of " and "Burning Sun."].
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nabataea | Helloween | Play | 07:03 | 16 MB | 49 MB |
| 2 | World of War | Helloween | Play | 04:58 | 11 MB | 35 MB |
| 3 | Live Now! | Helloween | Play | 03:11 | 7 MB | 22 MB |
| 4 | Far from the Stars | Helloween | Play | 04:44 | 10 MB | 34 MB |
| 5 | Burning Sun | Helloween | Play | 05:35 | 12 MB | 40 MB |
| 6 | Waiting for the Thunder | Helloween | Play | 03:55 | 8 MB | 28 MB |
| 7 | Hold Me in Your Arms | Helloween | Play | 05:12 | 11 MB | 31 MB |
| 8 | Wanna Be God | Helloween | Play | 02:02 | 4 MB | 13 MB |
| 9 | Straight Out of Hell | Helloween | Play | 04:35 | 10 MB | 33 MB |
| 10 | Asshole | Helloween | Play | 04:11 | 9 MB | 28 MB |
| 11 | Years | Helloween | Play | 04:24 | 10 MB | 30 MB |
| 12 | Make Fire Catch the Fly | Helloween | Play | 04:24 | 10 MB | 31 MB |
| 13 | Church Breaks Down | Helloween | Play | 06:09 | 14 MB | 40 MB |
| 60 mins | 138 MB | |||||
| 60 mins | 421 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Charly Bauerfeind | Engineer, Mixing, Producer |
| 2 | Andi Deris | Vocals |
| 3 | Thomas Geiger | Editing, Engineer |
| 4 | Sascha Gerstner | Guitar |
| 5 | Markus Grosskopf | Bass |
| 6 | Martin Häusler | Artwork, Design, Photography |
| 7 | Helloween | Primary Artist |
| 8 | Billy King | Vocals (Background) |
| 9 | Dani Löble | Drums |
| 10 | Marcos Moura | Illustrations |
| 11 | Olaf Senkbeil | Vocals (Background) |
| 12 | Matthias Ulmer | Keyboard Arrangements, Keyboards |
| 13 | Michael Weikath | Guitar |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |