HELLOWEEN vocalist Michael Kiske has given fans an unusually concrete update on the band's next studio album, telling Rock Mania that the follow-up to 2025's "Giants & Monsters" is already largely finished.
"We already have, I would say, like, 90% at least already done for the new record," Kiske said, adding that a release "is not gonna be long" in coming. He described the songwriting process as considerably smoother than it had been in the past, crediting the band's growing comfort with its current seven-piece lineup: "It was much easier than the one before... the insecurities are not there anymore."
Kiske also reflected on his own relationship to HELLOWEEN's recorded output, noting that he typically avoids revisiting finished work. "When I finish something... I usually don't listen to it anymore," he said, but described being pleasantly surprised on recently returning to the band's last two albums: "I had a real fresh impression, and I really liked it." Comparing the two records directly, he characterized the newer material as more streamlined than what preceded it: "The second one is a bit more organic. I think it's not that overloaded."
"Giants & Monsters," released in August 2025 via Reigning Phoenix Music and mixed at Wisseloord Studios in the Netherlands, followed 2021's self-titled "Helloween," which charted in the Top 10 in more than ten countries and marked the band's first album to fully unite its extended, multi-vocalist reunion lineup.
With Kiske describing the new material's foundation as essentially complete and expressing genuine enthusiasm for how it compares to recent output, HELLOWEEN's rapid turnaround points to a band that, more than four decades into its career, still appears to be accelerating rather than slowing down creatively.