Riff Police! Pull Over! #140: Metallica Vs Helloween!

Is this the last time we will see Metallica on the electric chair that is our riff police series? We highly doubt it. After all, they’re pushing 35 years of Dominance in Metal Mayhem not only as being an influence but as being influenced, you see it works both ways…

…Kai Michael Hansen is the vocalist and guitarist of not only German Speed Metallers Helloween but also Gamma Ray. His discography with both bands extends way back with 1985’s “Walls of Jericho” being the first offering from the former. Recorded with Harris Johns at Musiclab Studio in Berlin Germany with the band forming from the ashes of  Iron Fist and Gentry just 12 months earlier. At the same time as Helloween were getting together, Metallica were recording their sophomore album “Ride The Lighting” at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen Denmark with Flemming Rasmussen, a record that would drop in the summer of 1984 to critical acclaim. Guitarist Kirk Hammett took inspiration from Stephen King’s “The Stand” for the cover art and from his former band Exodus and a demo for a song called “Impaler” for new song “Trapped Under Ice“, something which would mean that the fellow Bay Area Thrash act would leave the release of that song for 20 years, until their return in 2004’s “Tempo of the Damned” due to the similarities. But here’s the thing. If you listen to “Ride the Sky” by Helloween, can you hear “Trapped Under Ice“?