Helloween were the goddamn celestial architects of metal’s most outrageous cathedral—power metal itself. Imagine Judas Priest crashing into Rush inside a wizard’s tower, while a pumpkin-headed demigod conducts lightning from the heavens. That’s Helloween. By taking the iron foundation of speed metal, injected it with fire, passion, and Tolkien-grade madness, they handed us a sound so fucking majestic it could split the sky in half. These Germans alchemist summoned music like sorcerers pulling riffs from the very bloodstream of eternity. So let’s march together into their shining pantheon of glory.

3. The Time of the Oath (1996)

Helloween stormed the mid-’90s battlefield with The Time of the Oath, an album so damn powerful it caused the sky to open and unleash thunder and fire onto all the unbelievers. Vocalist Andi Deris stood at the pulpit like some leather-clad prophet and screamed apocalyptic sermons to the unworthy. Tracks like “Power” are weapons forged for battle, dripping with enough adrenaline to resurrect a medieval army. “Forever and One” is the ballad you play at the funeral of the gods. It’s heavy, it’s mystical, it’s the rebirth of the pumpkin empire, and it roars like destiny itself.

2. Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I (1987)

Keeper Pt. I is where the magnificent saga begins! This is the first tome in the Helloween gospel. Michael Kiske’s voice soared and fucking left orbit, hitting notes that could break the stained glass in Heaven’s own temple. Hansen and Weikath’s riffs come down like twin lightning bolts hurled by Zeus himself. “Future World” is the national anthem of every outcast kid in a denim vest who ever dreamed of escaping suburbia on a dragon. And that title track is a goddamn 13-minute cosmic epic, a stairway not to heaven but to an intergalactic Valhalla made of riffs, dreams, and impossible falsettos.

1. Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II (1988)

Here it is my friends. The pumpkin crown jewel. The One Ring of power metal. Keeper Pt. II is so fucking perfect, so unrelenting in its glory, it should be etched into the walls of every temple, every dungeon, every karaoke bar across the known universe. “Eagle Fly Free” could resurrect Icarus himself and give him titanium wings. “Dr. Stein” is a carnival of lunacy, metal as a sideshow freak grinning at the moon. And “I Want Out” is the immortal scream of rebellion as a metal sing-along is a fucking lifestyle. Kiske is divine fire, Hansen and Weikath are duel-wielding lightning, and the whole album is a supernova in the Helloween cosmos. Markus Grosskopf’s bass holds the line while galloping like a blood thirsty warhorse, carrying these epics straight into eternity. And Ingo Schwichtenberg’s drumming is the heartbeat of the whole beast, a relentless thunderstorm that keeps the heavens trembling from start to finish.

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So why must you listen to these three records? Because without Helloween, the gods of metal would have no throne to sit on. Without them, there is no Gamma Ray, no Blind Guardian, no DragonForce, no symphonic crusade echoing across Europe’s fields. Helloween cracked open the fucking sky and let the angels of shred come tumbling down. These essential albums are sacred scripture, sung in falsetto, backed by riffs that could conquer empires. So put them on, crank them loud enough to rattle the gates of Olympus, and remember: pumpkins aren’t just for Halloween. Pumpkins are forever. Long live power metal, and long live Helloween!