Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part II by Helloween

Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II, the third studio album from Hamburg's Helloween, came out on Noise in 1988, and it's German power metal at full gallop: Kai Hansen and Michael Weikath's guitars chasing each other up the fretboard, Markus Grosskopf's bass and Ingo Schwichtenberg's drums pounding underneath, and Michael Kiske's vocals soaring over the lot. Tommy Hansen produced it.

"I Want Out" became one of their best-known songs, a fist-in-the-air anthem later covered by the likes of HammerFall and Sonata Arctica, while "Dr. Stein" throws a curveball with a long, moody, bluesy guitar solo and an organ solo on top. The title track goes long and epic, and stayed their longest song for years. The album went gold in Germany and even cracked the US chart at 108. It was also Kai Hansen's last album with the band until 2021; he left to form Gamma Ray.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.