Unisonic

Unisonic is the first album since Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II — twenty-four years earlier — on which Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen both appear on every song. It began on 10 November 2009, when Kiske joined forces with Dennis Ward and Kosta Zafiriou of Pink Cream 69; the three had already worked together in Place Vendome. On Ward's recommendation the Swiss guitarist Mandy Meyer (Krokus, Asia, Gotthard) came in, and the first tour in June 2010 put Kiske on stage for the first time since he left Helloween in 1993. Hansen joined in March 2011. Drums were cut that autumn at ICP Studios in Brussels, with Ward producing and Hansen co-producing. Eleven tracks run about fifty-five minutes. Kiske races through the opening “Unisonic” at a gallop, and on “Star Rider” Hansen reportedly rebuilt a chorus Ward had written in twenty seconds flat. Past “Renegade” and “My Sanctuary,” Kiske's own six-minute ballad “No One Ever Sees Me” closes the record. This is no Helloween replica. But the youth of those two men has genuinely come back.