Artist: Kiske, Michael
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2006
Rating: 1/5
The man who is written down as a co-creator of heavy metal, music that had a major influence on how metal developed on European soil, and on the development of the branch tagged with the word “power” or symphonic “power” in particular, can boast of owning a voice that, loud and clear, is one of the most ideal for both of those genres, starting with the post-“Walls Of Jericho” era and its original roots in Helloween.
These days, Michael Kiske has been fond of preaching in his statements for a while now that metal was never part of his personality, and that only his solo albums are the true reflection of who he is. All of that would be “cool” if… well, you can probably guess where this is going.
What he did in metal is the only thing that counts, be it Helloween or the projects (e.g. Avantasia, Place Vendome), while the same can’t be said for the solo albums by any stretch. That goes for his current album “Kiske” too. Michael sticks to the predictable soft rock template, or rather syrupy pop rock. The kind where from the first beat you know which chord and note he’ll hit next in every single song. You can read the whole record trivially, right off the bat, with no trouble and no wasted brain power. There’s no point singling out songs or ranking them in any fancy way, “this one’s like this, that one’s like that” and so on… It’s all strummed out on the same wavelength with a mid-tempo “beat”. Kiske is front and center in the production, of course, but the riffs, if there happen to be any at all, are way, way in the background. They also get buried by the sometimes downright excessive use of acoustic guitar. “Kiske” is supposedly Michael’s most personal, confessional album yet. Supposedly he found himself again with it. I’m happy for him that it happened, as long as the guy is happy and enlightened. Musically, though, the album “Kiske” is simply total castration. Kiske serves up music for ten-year-olds who read “Bravo” and clip out of that magazine manufactured pop icons, judged first and foremost on the performer’s looks and a lot less on the musical quality they offer. Maybe Michael would like to make the “Bravo” covers.
In short. La-la-la and hop-sa-sa noodling for about 45 minutes is more than enough on the album “Kiske”. Those of you looking for depth and breadth that embraces you and pulls you in magnetically, irreversibly, like love at first sight, steer well clear of this very, very sad product, which only made it into this review because of Michael Kiske’s great deeds of the past with Helloween. With this new solo album, Kiske has proven once more that he’s a pretty bad composer, or rather a master of the mood we know as boredom. Whatever good he’s put out, others wrote for him. Most recently last November, when his voice radiated recognizable epicness and pomp in the melodic “hard rock heavy” project Place Vendome. And the stubborn guy just won’t come to terms with that fact.. When you listen to, say, Helloween’s legendary album “Keeper Of The Seven Keys pt. I” and then spin the album “Kiske” right after, you just can’t believe the same voice sings on both records. Given the level of music Micael Kiske offers on the new album, he could have picked a new stage name without a second thought and released albums under “Karli”, “Rudi”, “Pepi”,… So it’s a shot in the dark, one that’s desperately full of emptiness and, with its sugar content, deadly dangerous at the same time.
Lineup
Michael Kiske – vocals, guitar, keyboards
Sandro Giampietro – guitar
Fontaine Burnett – bass guitar
Karsten Nagel – drums
Production
Michael Kiske
Tracklist
1. Fed By Stones
2. All-Solutions
3. Knew I Would
4. Kings-Fall
5. Hearts Are Free
6. The King Of It All
7. Sing My Song
8. Silently Craving
9. Truly
10. Painted
11. Sad As The World
Album length: 46:32
