For many years, I’ve been wondering when Metal Blade would eventually decide to reissue HELSTAR’s “A Distant Thunder” and “Nosferatu”, the two albums that the Texan outfit had originally released in the 80’s via the label. After all, the past few years, Metal Blade has gone all the way and put out some really successful reissues by such bands as FATES WARNING, HALLOWS EVE, FLOTSAM AND JETSAM just to name a few. Now, it is turn for HELSTAR to see their two albums reissued (although not remastered) thus giving the chance to a new generation of fans to grab a hold of these two gems that were relatively hard to find.

This box set is entitled “Rising From The Grave” and the cover depicts the refined HELSTAR logo (that was initially altered in 2007) and founding member’s, Larry Barragan, tattoo. Let’s track down the positive facts of this release: for starters, it includes a never before seen –at least widely- HELSTAR concert at the Backstage Club in Houston, TX during the band’s “Nosferatu” tour. The tape (you remember VHS, right?) captures HELSTAR performing in a packed house at Christmas day 1989. They put on a flawless show and personally I regard this specific line-up (Rivera-Barragan-Corbin-Abarca-Ferreira) to be the finest one in the entire HELSTAR history. In addition, the purchaser of this box-set gets to “travel back in time” with the memories of James Rivera and Larry Barragan, who share their memories in the liner notes of the package. On a negative note, I wasn’t fond of the retouch of the “A Distant Thunder” cover sleeve while one cannot help but noticing the inferior quality of the whole package by Metal Blade (something that I noticed also with the reissue of “Parallels” by FATES WARNING). However, it is a full and enjoyable release that will keep all the HELSTAR fans primed for the upcoming new studio album that will be called “The Glory of Chaos”.