Kiske / Somerville - S/T (2010) (Japanese Press, KICP 1495)

×

Kiske / Somerville - S/T (2010) (Japanese Press, KICP 1495)

Close

It’s been upwards of 17 years since Michael Kiske had put his efforts into something resembling a metal band on a full time basis, though his voice always has managed to find itself onto a number of projects since, almost like a ghost haunting the house that its temporal self had built with its own hands in its former life. In essence, the European power metal scene is as much his creation as it is that of Kai Hansen, Michael Weikath, Piet Selick, Ralf Scheepers and all the other early players in the German scene. His voice has been widely imitated by a number of vocalist both in and outside of Germany, from Alex Koch to Tobias Sammet. But none were a perfect emulation, let alone a substitute for the original.

Having now teamed up with Amanda Somerville of Avantasia and Aina fame, and backed up by a fine crop of seasoned instrumentalists, Kiske has now reemerged from semi-obscurity to move mountains with his colossal voice, culminating in the mostly metal and sometimes rock project that is “Kiske/Somerville”. Interestingly enough, the fruits of this endeavor are not much in line with the power metal orthodoxy that Helloween established in the late 80s, but are more in line with modern practices, resembling a number of both singers’ recent collaborations such as After Forever and Avantasia, along with guitarist Magnus Karlsson’s various projects. In fact, putting aside the large amount of symphonic additives and mellow rock elements, this bears a fairly strong resemblance to The Codex, but without the one-dimensional songwriting.

The results of this de facto super-band is actually pretty impressive considering the somewhat poor track record that the concept has had when the music begins. Amanda’s mostly mid-range and expressive voice is a fine foil for Kiske’s semi-operatic, attention grabbing tenor. Their performances are largely conventional, avoiding the extremely high notes that have often typified Kiske’s power metal work, and all circles around voice quality. In similar fashion, Karlsson keeps to his usually formulaic riff work and pristinely atmospheric keyboard backdrops, putting together songs free of overt showboating that would get in the way of the main attraction. In fact, the areas where the riff work gets really flamboyant are the Sander Gommans songs, which have a more dissonant and percussive feel, particularly in the cases of “Set Afire” and “Arise”, veering into the heavier symphonic sound that typified After Forever.

The only thing that really works against this album, and it’s a pretty minor flaw, is that it gets just a little too eclectic for its own good. Trying to square overt Deep Purple inspired songs with a symphonic twist like “Devil In Her Heart” with formulaic mid-tempo power metal anthems such as “Nothing Left To Say” and “If I Had A Wish” on the same album is a bit of a chore, though on their own all of these songs work very well. Even straight up ballads such as “One Night Burning” and “Second Chance” are fun and easy to get into despite being about as conventionally tailored as can be. But the real slices of genius come into play in “Silence” and “End Of The Road” where catchiness is tempered with atmosphere and development. There’s no high speed glory or all out shred fests, but there’s definitely no shortage of winning ideas spun together into a couple of compact songs.

Given Kiske’s recent association with yet another full time project in Unisonic, which will hopefully be getting some material released soon, the jury is out as to if there will be a follow up to this album. But this collaboration was definitely a winner, and a nice breath of fresh air from the stereotypical beauty and the beast couplings that have since become cliché with the continual division of bands from After Forever and Epica, to HDK and Revamp and whatever other projects may come about as musicians split up and reform. Kiske fanatics may or may not take to this depending on how lighter gothic bands agree with their ears, but pretty much anyone who has followed Somerville’s or Gommans’ work will like what they hear on here.

~ http://www.metal-archives.com