Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys: The Legacy (2005)

Go waaayy back to where I started my blog, before Andi Deris was a part of the band, and you'll find the first two KEEPER OF THE SEVEN KEYS albums from Helloween, which pretty much set the power metal ball rolling, and which still appear at or near the top of many 'greatest' lists. And yet I didn't really love either of them - I'm really going to have to give them another try someday soon.
Anyway, Helloween has continued to soldier on, with plenty of top material being released, and come 2005, they brought out this double album which, supposedly, concludes the KEYS story, although I don't really know if there's much of a story here.
Just the thought of seventy-eight minutes of music is enough to make me groan, and The Legacy certainly drags at times, but there's also much to like. The fourteen-minute opener "The King For 1000 Years" sets the tone, being a mixture of power and progressive metal, and surely one of their best tracks.  What follows are songs of various lengths and tempos, but with plenty of singalong choruses and key changes amidst the complex instrumental passages, to make it a worthy listen.
"Occasion Avenue" is the eleven minute one that opens the second disc, and while it's not as good as "The King", it's still not bad, while "Light The Universe" (with Candace Night from Blackmore's Night) is a fine ballad, and the concluding "My Life For One More Day" shows Helloween still has what it takes after all these years.
I'm rating this higher than the first two KEYS albums, but that could change, though more likely with them going up than this going down, for it really has much to recommend it, through its occasional missteps.

****