''Walls of Jericho'' is the debut studio album by German

power metal Power metal is a subgenre of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional heavy metal with speed metal, often within a symphonic context. Generally, power metal is characterized by a faster, lighter, and more uplifting sound, in co ...

band

Helloween Helloween is a German power metal band founded in 1984 in Hamburg by members of bands Iron Fist, Gentry, Second Hell and Powerfool. The band has at times been called one of the most influential European heavy metal bands of the 1980s. Its first ...

, released in 1985 on LP by

Noise Records Noise Records is a German heavy metal record label founded in 1983 by German music industry personality Karl-Ulrich Walterbach as an expansion of his company Modern Music Records. It was sold to the Sanctuary Records Group in 2001 and ceased an ...

. It is the band's only album featuring

Kai Hansen Kai Michael Hansen (born 17 January 1963) is a German musician who is the founder, lead guitarist and vocalist of power metal band Gamma Ray (band), Gamma Ray. He is also one of the co-founders of another power metal band Helloween, which he was ...

as lead vocalist until 2021's ''

'', although he would continue to act as guitarist on the two following albums. In 1988, ''Walls of Jericho'' was released on CD. Due to the enhanced capacity of the CD, the ''

'' EP/mini-LP and the song "Judas" from the ''Judas'' EP were added to the ''Walls of Jericho'' track listing; they are now released as a compilation. In the late 1980s, due to a manufacturing error, side one of several cassette copies of ''Walls of Jericho'' accidentally contained the music of

Celtic Frost Celtic Frost () was a Swiss metal music, heavy metal band from Zürich. They are remembered for their strong influence on the development of several metal subgenres, particularly extreme metal,Bukszpan, Daniel. ''The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal' ...

's '' To Mega Therion'', confusing many first-time Helloween listeners.

Track listings

Original Edition

1987 CD Edition

2006 Remastered & Expanded Edition

''Disc one is the same as above.'' *Tracks 1 & 2 also appear on the album '' Treasure Chest'' *Tracks 3 & 4 also appear on the ''Judas'' EP *Tracks 5 & 6 also appear on the ''

Death Metal Death metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep death growl, growling vocals; aggressive ...

'' compilation *Track 7 also appears on the ''

'' EP

Notes

*The second pressing of an unofficial 1991 cassette release by MG Records comes with a yellow top right corner, a pink stripe in the top right corner, a pink spine, and a pink/black label logo on the front cover. The third pressing in 1992 comes with a blue top right corner, a yellow stripe in the top right corner, a pink background on the front cover, and a black band logo on the front cover *An unofficial 1991 cassette release by Tact adds the song "Starlight" *An unofficial 1993 cassette release by Euro Star adds the song "Judas". The second pressing comes with a green background behind the tracklist, green border around the album art, the band name in green, and the album title in blue *The track list on the back cover of the 1993 CD release by Futurist lists "Walls of Jericho" and "Ride the Sky" as separate tracks instead of the actual CD where they are joint *An unofficial 1997 cassette release by Audio Max excludes "Heavy Metal (Is the Law)" and "Judas" *The track list on the back cover of the 1997 re-release by Noise Records is incorrect, which lists "Walls of Jericho" and "Ride the Sky" as joint songs *An unofficial 2001 CD release by Agat Company contains the 1987 album '' Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part I'' *The 2002 release by Sauron Music has the lyrics in Korean *

Personnel

Band members

– vocals, guitar *

Michael Weikath Michael Ingo Joachim "Weiki" Weikath (born 7 August 1962) is a German musician, best known as a founding member and one of the guitarists of pioneering power metal band Helloween. Biography Weikath was born in Hamburg and was musical from a ...

– guitar, cover concept *

Markus Grosskopf Markus Grosskopf (born 21 September 1965) is a German musician best known as the bass guitarist, backing vocalist and a founding member of the power metal band Helloween. Biography Grosskopf started playing bass at the age of 15 when he became ...

– bass *

Ingo Schwichtenberg Ingo "Mr. Smile" Schwichtenberg (18 May 1965 – 8 March 1995) was a German drummer and one of the founding members of the power metal band Helloween. Biography Helloween guitarist Roland Grapow said about Schwichtenberg in an interview 1999: ...

– drums

Additional musicians

*James Hardway –

E-mu Emulator II The Emulator is a series of digital sampling synthesizers using floppy-disk storage that was manufactured by E-mu Systems from 1981 until 2002. Although it was not the first commercial sampler, the Emulator was innovative in its integration ...

Production

*Produced, engineered and mixed by

Harris Johns Harris Johns is a German music producer, active since the late-1970s in the heavy metal and punk scene, working for a lot of big-name bands, such as Helloween, Coroner (band), Coroner, Tankard (band), Tankard, Sodom (band), Sodom, Voivod (band), ...

*Edda and Uwe Karczewski – Cover design *Peter Vahlefeld – Layout, typography

Charts

Trivia

*The titular entity in the song "

Gorgar ''Gorgar'' is a 1979 pinball machine designed by Barry Oursler and released by WMS Industries, Williams Electronics. It was the first speech synthesis, speech-synthesized ("talking") pinball machine, containing a vocabulary of seven words ("Gorg ...

" is the first talking pinball machine ever produced. *The main theme of

Edvard Grieg Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic music, Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwid ...

's "

In the Hall of the Mountain King "In the Hall of the Mountain King" () is a piece of orchestral music composed by Edvard Grieg in 1875 as incidental music for the sixth scene of act 2 in Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play ''Peer Gynt''. It was originally part of Opus 23 but was later ex ...

" is used in the song "Gorgar." *The intro to "Starlight" is taken from a commercial in the movie '' Halloween III: Season of the Witch''. *The song "Heavy Metal (Is the Law)" is not an official live recording. Rather, crowd noise was added. *The live versions of "Ride the Sky" and "Guardians" are ''not'' live recordings; they are the same songs as found on ''Walls of Jericho'' but with crowd noise mixed in. The actual live versions of the two songs appeared only on the original 12" vinyl edition of the "Judas" single. *Professional wrestler

Chris Jericho Christopher Keith Irvine (born November 9, 1970), better known by the ring name Chris Jericho, is an American-Canadian professional wrestler, rock musician, and actor. As a wrestler, he has been signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) , where he ...

took his ring name and the name of his submission maneuver from the title of this album.

References

External links

Helloween's official website
{{Authority control Helloween albums 1985 debut albums Noise Records albums Albums produced by Harris Johns