Future World

hells_unicorn pretty much summed it up: Future World is a song that screams "I'm written by Kai Hansen", with its simple chord progressions, catchy chorus, goofy interlude, and two nice melodic solos. It's very happy, in the same mood as 'I Want Out', the infamous song from the Keeper II album.

The Kiske version of Starlight is so damn superior to the old one... Michael has a voice that is way superior to Kai's (at least until Kai began to sing pretty good in Gamma Ray), and the sound is cleaner as well, making the song very enjoyable. He might have been 18 at the time of this recording, but he sure had a very good and almost operatic voice unlike Kai's immature and powerless one found on Walls of Jericho.
The song is full of riffs and kicks some serious ass, even more than the old version.

The different version of 'A Little Time' is a bit shorter than the original and doesn't do much for me, I can't notice anything different other than the duration.

This is a good single and worth tracking down because of the second song, though nowadays you may get it by buying the remastered and expanded version of Keeper I.

During the later 90s when my Metallica worshipping days were coming to a slow end, I began seeking better music to mold my guitar and bass playing (at the time I was playing bass in an all Metallica cover band). A lot of the better stuff I got I had to import from Japan, particularly this re-release of an old Helloween classic from part one of the Keeper series and the single for the up and coming new album “Better than Raw”.

Future World is obviously one of the happier songs that Kai Hansen put together during his tenure with the band, featuring a simple chord progression with a simple signature riff, not all that different from his more angst driven anthem “I want out”, though with a brief filling display at the end to close out what is quite a catchy song.

The new version of “Starlight” is vocally an improvement over its original incarnation with Kai doing the vocals, mostly because Kai voice was not quite as powerful and mature as it is on his Gamma Ray material. Michael Kiske definitely gave the band its mainstream appeal with his cleaner yet still eccentric/quasi operatic vocal style. The different version of “A Little Time” is a bit shorter, but still the same melodic anthem featuring a short solo interchange and an infectiously catchy chorus.

Japanese re-releases of old Helloween material are a godsend for Power Metal freaks like me because they always have plenty of additional perks. If you liked the sound of the Keeper albums and want to hear what a classic Kai Hansen era song sounds like with different vocals, it would definitely be worth it to track this single down.