HELLOWEEN were going through an unusual phase in 2003, after the departure of Rowland Grapow and Uli Kusch from the band. Following the release of the dark and Halloween-y “The Dark Ride,” the band had the opportunity to go back to their musical roots with “Rabbit Don’t Come Easy,” which was released via Nuclear Blast Records On May 12th, 2003. We dug into some more information on this album for its 20th anniversary!
Perhaps one of the most intriguing things about this album was the title, which goes hand-in-hand with the very non-pumpkin-y album art. On reading a 2003 interview with Metal Storm, it seems that the title relates to a metaphor; that is to say, if making an album is like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, this time around, the rabbit didn’t come out of the hat so easily. This was largely due to the fact that, not only had Sascha Gerstner recently replaced Rowland Grapow on guitars, but they didn’t have a steady drummer at all throughout the recordings.
Reading further into this interview, it seems that the other main point of this album was, apparently, to show that this was not a sequel to “The Dark Ride,” and that it was a more happy-go-lucky HELLOWEEN release, trying to prove that they were still able to do what they do best after dropping two band members. Marcus Grosskopf (bass) told Metal Storm that the previous album had happened, “because certain people wanted us to work with other certain people,” and that “Rabbit Don’t Come Easy” was showing, “that we can do our best when left to our own devices.” This was interesting to read, as the general consensus in the metal community might suggest that “The Dark Ride” was one of the band’s best albums, while one never hears anyone talking about how great “Rabbit Don’t Come Easy” was. In fact, despite not being an auditory travesty like notoriously bad albums like “Pink Bubbles Go Ape” or “Chameleon” (stay tuned for another anniversary special, coming soon!), “Rabbit Don’t Come Easy” might arguably be one of the band’s most forgettable albums, at least from that era.
The album starts decently with “Just a Little Sign,” which is a high-energy and fun enough song, but it really doesn’t bring anything to the table that HELLOWEEN hadn’t already done, and better, at that point in their career. It also steers fully away from any of that tasty darkness that was so prevalent in the previous release, except for perhaps Andi Deris‘ last handful of times shouting “just a little sign,” which are the brief highlights of the song. “Open Your Life,” in hindsight, could be a logical bridge between “The Dark Ride” and some of the sounds that they better develop in “Gambling with the Devil” (2007), but suffers from a boring speedy power metal chorus, though it does also include a weird mixed solo section. Then we get to “The Tune,” which feels like another slice of the same thing HELLOWEEN always does.
The vaguely eastern influence at the beginning of “Never Be a Star” has a little somethin’ somethin’ to it and the chorus has some nice soaring vocals from Deris, but the verses are really lackluster, making for a bit of an unbalanced piece. “Liar” is a pretty decently gritty and heavy song – never a favorite, but it was always one of the tracks from this album that left a mark of any sort, likely because it’s the closest representation of what was on the previous album. The vaguely eastern influence again in “Sun 4 the World” was probably cool back in the day, but by today’s sound standards and with the number of folk bands who use real instruments, the programmed extras are a bit oppressive, while Deris‘ vocal lines are a little melodramatic or perhaps trying too hard, resulting in it being a bit weird/awkward, though it’s a little smoother in the second verse. It feels like it’s going to be a long epic, but ends up being the shortest song on the release, oddly.
“Don’t Stop Being Crazy” immediately brings “Stay Crazy,” from 2015’s “My God Given Right” to mind… the song actually has a pretty good chorus and, unusually, some David Bowie -feeling moments, but knowing they have a song with the exact same theme a decade later once again makes me wonder how many ideas this band rehashes repeatedly. Also, at this point, the fakeness of the synth sound starts to be a bit grating. Then it bounces back to peppy power metal for “Do You Feel Good,” which feels a bit like more of the same old. “Hell Was Made in Heaven” is another pretty solid piece that has some dark moments and a solid chorus and “Back Against the Wall” is at least a bit more diverse and not so cookie-cutter designed, while “Listen to the Flies” has some dark heaviness again, and offers a little more intrigue now than it did back in the day.
“Nothing to Say” is the longest track by far and has a slightly more progressive feel and some really fun parts to it. This was another track that crawled a bit out of the stank pile on multiple re-listens, as it has a rather different sound from the rest of the album, with funky moments and unusual time changes during the verses, which, again, is odd for them but ends up working in their favor. The album then wraps up with “Far Away,” which is another high-pitched straightforward power metal song – the album should have ended on the previous song for maximum effect, but HELLOWEEN does tend to drag their albums out far too long.
Having personally discovered HELLOWEEN around the time “The Dark Ride” came out, “Rabbit Don’t Come Easy” would have been the first album released by the band after I learned of their existence, so it says a lot that this was never in my album collection in the era when I would order every album from every metal band that I knew. While “Liar” had a similarly dark and heavy feel that was reminiscent to what you’d get from “The Dark Ride,” and “Hell Was Made in Heaven” interested me for its unusual title and romantic lyrics, nothing else on the album really stuck with me, and on a few re-listens in 2023, very few tracks have joined their club. It all seems like “basic Helloween power metal,” which in sound has always been one of the founding fathers of the power metal genre, but tends to not be all that insightful when it comes to developing further. In even deeper hindsight, perhaps that’s always been a bit of a problem with HELLOWEEN. The more I review their albums (old and new) these days, they always seemed to promote quantity over quality – surely if you pack sixteen tracks into most of your albums, chances are that you’ll get five killer tracks out of it. However, it leads one to wonder what might happen if the band focused a little more effort onto making a few tracks really great, rather than constantly trying to just push out as much music as possible. If the band were in a hurry to get to the studio for this album, without being able to wait on their first replacement drummer (Mark Cross, who had to stop recording when he became ill), it sounds like they were on a timeframe that might have resulted in a rushed album, especially considering they were working with a new guitarist. No matter how nice the new chemistry may have been, this album just simply doesn’t hold up to what many of their other releases offers, even after 20 years.
Written by Bear Wiseman
Tracklist
- Just a Little Sign
- Open Your Life
- The Tune
- Never Be a Star
- Liar
- Sun 4 the World
- Don’t Stop Being Crazy
- Do You Feel Good
- Hell Was Made in Heaven
- Back Against the Wall
- Listen to the Flies
- Nothing to Say
- Far Away
