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ROLAND GRAPOW "The Four Seasons Of Life"
Another Helloween member to make a solo album, but pumpkinheads don't have to worry, because at the moment there is no reason for the band to split. While singer Andi Deris has done a very melodic and hard rock oriented work, guitar player Roland Grapow has mantained a very powerful style, producing an album in which Helloween influences have been mixed with loads of classical music and solos a-la Malmsteen. The result is far good, excpet for the vocals, done by Roland himself, which are not as epic and high as this kind of music requires, but sometimes it even seems to hear a certain suffering in Roland's voice. Concering all the rest, the whole work is absolutely brilliant, mostly because the songs are real songs, in the sense that they aren't just a way to demonstrate every sort of guitar solos, but you can easily listen to them, sing them and of course, like them! The best ones, according to me, are the speedy opener "The Winner" and the title track, a long atmospheric mid-tempo recalling Helloween's "The Time Of The Oath" (written by the same author). It may be not too original, but this surely an album that many people should have...