My God-Given Right

If the early Helloween records felt like cathedrals, this one feels like a fist pump. Arriving decades into the band's career, it trades some of the operatic delicacy of the Kiske era for a more muscular, mid-tempo swagger — Andi Deris at the helm, his voice earthier and more street-level, carrying the kind of lived-in confidence that suits a band comfortable in their own skin. The production is polished and modern, the guitars punchy rather than soaring, built for maximum impact in festival-sized venues. Emotionally, it radiates a combative self-assurance: the sense of an artist who has survived industry nonsense and critical dismissal and arrived on the other side unbroken. The chorus is designed to be shouted collectively, a communal act of affirmation. There's less searching here than in their earlier work — this is a band declaring rather than discovering. It belongs to a long tradition of veteran rock and metal acts making music that celebrates their own persistence, and it does so without irony or apology. Best experienced at a live show, surrounded by people who have followed this band for twenty years and know every word.