To mark the release of new album Giants & Monsters, Metal Hammer has teamed up with power metal luminaries Helloween for a t-shirt and magazine bundle unavailable anywhere else.
Through the Louder webstore, you can get your hands on a version of the current issue of Hammer with a cover dedicated to the German maximalists. It comes with a t-shirt featuring the band’s enduring Keeper Of The Seven Keys mascot. You won’t find it through any other retailer, and supplies are limited, so grab your now!
Helloween released Giants & Monsters, their 17th studio album, on August 29 via Nuclear Blast. It was the band’s second release since bringing back former frontman Michael Kiske and singer/guitarist Kai Hansen, who returned in 2016 while long-serving vocalist Andy Deris remained in the fold.
This expanded ‘Pumpkins United’ lineup have toured the world and brought the band to unprecedented levels of success: their 2021 self-titled album was their first-ever chart-topper in Germany.
Giants & Monsters is reviewed in the new Hammer, getting a glowing nine-out-of-10 score from journalist Chris Chantler.
“Giants & Monsters rectifies its predecessor’s few flaws,” Chantler writes, “with far more fully collaborative songwriting and vocal contributions shared out more equitably. Deris and Kiske’s vocal lines wrap around each other beautifully on lighter-waving power ballad Into The Sun, the first song of its kind from this line-up and a masterclass of the form.”
In addition, Hammer veteran Dave Everley interviews the band. They talk not just about Giants & Monsters, but the 40-year campaign that’s brought the now-seven-piece to the top of the European metal game.
“We chewed heavy metal down and spat it out our own way,” Hansen tells us. “Someone came up with the idea to call it ‘power metal’. I mean, what the hell is that? I always thought power metal is fucking cheesy. And we are not cheesy, fuck that … Well, maybe we can sometimes be a little bit cheesy.”
Get all of this – as well as a celebration of the late, great Ozzy Osbourne; the inside story of new Deftones album Private Music; and reviews of all the most talked-about metal albums of the month – in the new Hammer. Order your copy (with exclusive cover and t-shirt) now.
