Helloween

Gambling With the Devil, Helloween's thirteenth album, with an October 31, 2007 wide release, brings back the heady days of high-speed fantasy metal, when the German progenitors of the genre were setting that particular tone with Keeper of the Keys Parts I &II. Lead single "As I Fall" did cause one Rhapsody editor to cry "This sounds like Avril Lavigne!" but rest assured as the remainder of the album is rife with blurry shred, Halford-level gloriousness and no additional choruses designed to reach out to the younger generation. Even then, Helloween doesn't do such a bad job.