Walls of Jericho

Yes, I really did give this 5 stars. Loved it!

At first I thought the cover was terrible AI! But obviously it's not. This is stupid, gleeful fun though, just what you want from this kind of metal: not taking itself too seriously, but absolutely ridiculously technically proficient.

Walls of Jericho is a good speed metal album by Helloween. The only one on which one of the guitarists does the lead vocals and these vocals are rather good. I guess he rightfully decided to choose the superior instrument

Did not like this. The vocals are pretty bad. No wonder they brought in a new one for the next album.

In the 80s, this would have been considered scary or frightening. Today, it sounds dated, goofy and really dumb. They had no chance of reaching Metallica levels of success.

Nah. Corny hair/thrash/trash metal. Soooo dated.

Surprised to see this. Not my favourite Helloween, but decent.

This was a good speedmetal album.

I don't hate it that much 2 Actually a really good album damn 4

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Walls of Jericho, Metal invaders

I really wasn’t expecting this. I’ve heard quite a bit of Helloween’s later, more polished stuff, which does nothing for me, but this 1985 debut (EP and album on one CD) is pure NWOBHM joy (except they’re German of course)! I was transported straight back to those formative Maiden gigs and Battle of the Band competitions. Joyful!

First impression in advance of any listening was a pretty dumb band name and pretty dumb cover art. Neither necessarily means all that much where metal is concerned, but the immediate intro with the cheesy horn rendition of London Bridges was further foreshadowing. And yeah this was pretty dumb. Amiable enough thrash with very basic lyrics (it doesn't get much more on the nose than chanting "heavy metal" over and over). The epitome of 3 stars down the middle. Which is not to say I disliked it.

Great to hear some speed metal here, nice quick little ripper of an LP (live tracks excluded). None of the melodies or riffs stayed with me past lunch but that's besides the point, this was an enjoyable jolt of energy after some snoozer albums the past few days.

Not really my thing, but Judas absolutely slaps.

Good fun metal

There is no way you can convince me that this isn’t one of the heavy metal parody bands that Strong Bad came up with in one of his emails

Some prime 80s heavy metal - the kind of thing Spinal Tap could cover. Entertaining!

These guys really wanted Ween’s attention huh

Cheesy dumb fun that's hard to hate, like most of power metal. Not really the biggest fan of the vocals or the weirdly thin production, but I enjoyed it. Made me feel good. Big fan of the big buff dog demon on the cover as well. I like how it was a contractual obligation for every 80s metal band to put some random bullshit like that on the album cover.

Daft name, daft album. Not rubbish, just a bit silly

Speed metal, power metal. Ni fu ni fa.

I listened to this after the Yoko Ono album and it was blessed relief. Notes! Song structure! People having hard fast fun for the sake of it! I can't quite see 4 stars but I did enjoy it.

Enligt min arbetskollega så ska det här vara en klassiker. Kan nog förstå tänket men det här tilltalar mig inte alls.

Yesterday was not a good day to hit me metal nonsense

Music you put on your cassette player when you're 12 years old and angry at your parents and siblings. And outgrow by age 13.

So over compressed and over produced it sounds like a pop record. As heavy as a feather. Based off this, a waste of a damn cool name.

Relentless drums. I felt tied just listening to this. And it sounded like one long song for the most part.

Meh. I'd hoped for more.

Heavy metal, power metal, speed metal. There are so many singers of metal music and I’d have to say speed metal may be my least favorite of them all. Technically it’s an impressive album but I listen for enjoyment not musical proficiency. This album is a bit long as well and the back half of the album I struggled to really differentiate the songs. I’m sure it has its purpose and plenty of fans but I am just not one. 4.9/10

The album is a solid representation of the metal sub-genre. I'm just not a fan of the sub-genre.

I got through zero whole songs. The band name, album cover, and year of release tell me to stay far, far away.

Speaks volumes when the *single* 5-star review for this one (as of early March 2026) says: "Yes, I really did give this 5 stars." Like, this person knows the music is *objectively* terrible and yet just thought: "Fuck it, I'm just gonna headbang to it". *Some* metalheads are decidedly not the sharpest knives in the proverbial drawer.... But they're most often cool and chill dudes, I gotta say. Maybe they're right not to take themselves so seriously, who knows? The thing is, I *do* want to take this type of music seriously -- as seriously as any other music genre out there, that is. So, *in all seriousness*, let me just say this about *Walls of Jericho*: some guitar solos at the end of a couple of songs there can be fun to listen to, either in a guitar-nerd-sort-of-way or in a tongue-in-cheek-and-hand-raised-in-a-🤘-manner. But those vocals... Those HORRID, STUPID, RIDICULOUS vocals... And it's not only a matter of personal taste, it's also a matter of execution: that guy is out of key for the some of the more high-pitched shenanigans, and when he's not, there are still so many grating inflexions anyway. Like, yuck. At some point, there was one song that I found not so bad for the genre ("Metal Invaders"), but the lead vocalist managed to ruin the track's conclusion anyway with his obnoxious wailing. Fun fact, Helloween added fake crowd noises for fake live versions of their songs in the tracklist. On "Heavy Metal (Is The Law)" they clearly did this to create a disingenuous, totally made-up interaction between the singer and the "audience". I mean, c'mon, guys! This is so lame to pretend this interaction as recorded in here ever happened in the first place! Pretty sure the band's hope was to trigger their live show audiences to reproduce that moment in future gigs. Like, tell me about real spontaneity and authenticity within that particular metal subgenre after that... 🙄 I've listened to a couple of later Helloween songs to hear the difference between this vocalist and a subsequent one used by the band, by the way. The new one is more self-assured technically speaking. But his vocal parts still sounded stupid, so it's not as if Helloween got it so wrong compared to their own initial "goals" on this early LP. As for the rest of the instrumentation in the music they released later, it sounded way more sanitized compared to *Walls Of Jericho*. At least the music still sounds raw here. With those last points in mind, maybe I could feel benevolent and give some extra half-points to this thing... But you've already read my final grading, so let's cut the crap: 1/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums. Yes, I really did give this 1 star, ha ha. 6/10 for more general purposes (4.5 for the musicianship and production values + 1.5 for the artistry) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 79 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 99 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 200 (including this one) ---- Émile, tu trouveras ma dernière réponse sous le *Inside* de Bo Burnham