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Unisonic (album)
''Unisonic'' is the debut album by the hard rock/power metal band Unisonic. It was released in 2012 on earMUSIC. The album is the group's first full-length studio release and since ''Keeper of the Seven Keys, Pt. 2'' (1988) by Helloween the first album to feature both Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske performing on all songs. Production The majority of the songs were written by Dennis Ward and Kai Hansen, with further input from Mandy Meyer and Michael Kiske. A music video was filmed for the song . The album was released on 21 March 2012 in Japan, on 30 March 2012 in Europe and on 22 May 2012 in the US, with cover art credited to Martin Häusler. The album became available in several special editions, such as the European (Mediabook), the Japanese and the US, each containing a different bonus track. Unisonic's debut album entered several international music charts, scoring the highest points on the Finnish albums chart, Japanese albums chart, German albums chart and Swedish album ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unisonic (band)
Unisonic was a German hard rock/power metal supergroup, founded on 10 November 2009 by Helloween singer Michael Kiske alongside Dennis Ward and Kosta Zafiriou from Pink Cream 69 and Mandy Meyer, formerly in Asia and Gotthard. In 2011 the band was joined by Gamma Ray leader and Helloween co-founder, Kai Hansen. The band released the EP ''Ignition'' and their first studio album '' Unisonic'' in 2012. The EP '' For The Kingdom'' and the second album '' Light of Dawn'' came out in 2014. Both studio albums have scored high entries in several international music charts. Unisonic is the first full studio collaboration between Kiske and Hansen since Helloween's albums '' Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part I'' and ''Part II''. History Vocalist Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween), bassist Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69) and drummer Kosta Zafiriou (ex-Pink Cream 69) had already worked together in the AOR project Place Vendome. After the release of Place Vendome's second album, '' Streets of Fire'' in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Albums Chart
, established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc. was originally set up as a subsidiary of Original Confidence and took over the latter's Oricon record charts in April 2002. The charts are compiled from data drawn from some 39,700 retail outlets (as of April 2011) and provide sales rankings of music CDs, DVDs, electronic games, and other entertainment products based on weekly tabulations. Results are announced every Tuesday and published in ''Oricon Style'' by subsidiary Oricon Entertainment Inc. The group also lists panel survey-based popularity ratings for television commercials on its official website. Oricon started publishing Combined Chart, which includes CD sales, digital sales, and streaming together, on December 19, 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keyboard Instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital pianos. Other keyboard instruments include celestas, which are struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, and carillons, which are usually housed in bell towers or belfries of churches or municipal buildings. Today, the term ''keyboard'' often refers to keyboard-style synthesizers. Under the fingers of a sensitive performer, the keyboard may also be used to control dynamics, phrasing, shading, articulation, and other elements of expression—depending on the design and inherent capabilities of the instrument. Another important use of the word ''keyboard'' is in historical musicology, where it means an instrument whose identity cannot be firmly established. Particularly in the 18th century, the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percussion Instrument
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments.''The Oxford Companion to Music'', 10th edition, p.775, In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of ideophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone. The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, belonging to the membranophones, and cym ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drum Kit
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player ( drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks, one in each hand, and uses their feet to operate a foot-controlled hi-hat and bass drum pedal. A standard kit may contain: * A snare drum, mounted on a stand * A bass drum, played with a beater moved by a foot-operated pedal * One or more tom-toms, including rack toms and/or floor toms * One or more cymbals, including a ride cymbal and crash cymbal * Hi-hat cymbals, a pair of cymbals that can be manipulated by a foot-operated pedal The drum kit is a part of the standard rhythm section and is used in many types of popular and traditional music styles, ranging from rock and pop to blues and jazz. __TOC__ History Early development Before the development of the drum set, drums and cymbals used in military and orchestral m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kosta Zafiriou
Kosta Zafiriou is a Swiss musician and music manager, one of the owners of Bottom Row Promotion company, which currently manages the bands Unisonic, Helloween, Axxis, Gotthard and Krokus. A former hard rock drummer, Zafiriou is known as one of the founding members of bands Pink Cream 69, Place Vendome and Unisonic. Biography Zafiriou started to play drums at the age of 16. His first band was Redline, where he played with the guitarist Alfred Koffler, in 1982. Later in 1986 he joined the band Kymera where he played with vocalist Andi Deris. Kymera recorded two EPs with Zafiriou and Deris before they left to form the band Pink Cream 69 with guitarist Alfred Koffler and bassist Dennis Ward in 1987. Zafiriou played with Pink Cream 69 from their '' debut album'' to their tenth ''In10sity'' before leaving the band in 2012. Zafiriou and Pink Cream 69 bandmate Dennis Ward have also worked with two projects together with ex-Helloween vocalist Michael Kiske: Place Vendome, a mel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass Guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music. The four-string bass is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar (typically E, A, D, and G). It is played primarily with the fingers or thumb, or with a pick. To be heard at normal performance volumes, electric basses require external amplification. Terminology According to the ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', an "Electric bass guitar sa Guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2." It also defines ''bass'' as "Bass (iv). A contraction of Double bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Backing Vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are used in a broad range of popular music, traditional music, and world music styles. Solo artists may employ professional backing vocalists in studio recording sessions as well as during concerts. In many rock and metal bands (e.g., the power trio), the musicians doing backing vocals also play instruments, such as guitar, electric bass, drums or keyboards. In Latin or Afro-Cuban groups, backing singers may play percussion instruments or shakers while singing. In some pop and hip hop groups and in musical theater, they may be required to perform dance routines while singing through headset microphones. Styles of background vocals vary according to the type of song and genre of music. In pop and country songs, backing vocalists may sing harmo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhythm Guitar
In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar); and to provide all or part of the harmony, i.e. the chords from a song's chord progression, where a chord is a group of notes played together. Therefore, the basic technique of rhythm guitar is to hold down a series of chords with the fretting hand while strumming or fingerpicking rhythmically with the other hand. More developed rhythm techniques include arpeggios, damping, riffs, chord solos, and complex strums. In ensembles or bands playing within the acoustic, country, blues, rock or metal genres (among others), a guitarist playing the rhythm part of a composition plays the role of supporting the melodic lines and improvised solos played on the lead instrument or instruments, be they strings, wind, brass, keyboard or even percus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lead Guitar
Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featured guitar, which usually plays single-note-based lines or double-stops. In rock, heavy metal, blues, jazz, punk, fusion, some pop, and other music styles, lead guitar lines are usually supported by a second guitarist who plays rhythm guitar, which consists of accompaniment chords and riffs. History The first form of lead guitar emerged in the 18th century, in the form of classical guitar styles, which evolved from the Baroque guitar, and Spanish Vihuela. Such styles were popular in much of Western Europe, with notable guitarists including Antoine de Lhoyer, Fernando Sor, and Dionisio Aguado. It was through this period of the classical shift to romanticism the six-string guitar was first used for solo composing. Through the 19th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lead Vocals
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ensemble as the dominant sound. In vocal group performances, notably in soul and gospel music, and early rock and roll, the lead singer takes the main vocal melody, with a chorus or harmony vocals provided by other band members as backing vocalists. Lead vocalists typically incorporate some movement or gestures into their performance, and some may participate in dance routines during the show, particularly in pop music. Some lead vocalists also play an instrument during the show, either in an accompaniment role (such as strumming a guitar part), or playing a lead instrument/instrumental solo role when they are not singing (as in the case of lead singer-guitar virtuoso Jimi Hendrix). The lead singer also typically guides the vocal ensem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stalingrad (Accept Album)
''Stalingrad'' is the 13th studio album by German heavy metal band Accept, which was released on 6 April 2012, by the independent German record label Nuclear Blast Records. It is their second album since their 2009 reunion, and like its predecessor, '' Blood of the Nations'' (2010), was produced by Andy Sneap. Reception Critical reception of the album has been largely favorable. ''AllMusic'' published a review giving the album three-and-a-half stars out of five. Reviewer James Christopher Monger also noted that current vocalist Tornillo does an "awfully convincing Udo Dirkschneider impression." ''Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles'' and ''Thrash Hits'' also gave the album positive reviews. The album was successful, debuting at number six on the German albums chart. ''Stalingrad'' also debuted at number 81 on the ''Billboard'' 200, becoming Accept's first album to crack the top 100 in the United States since ''Metal Heart'' (1985), which peaked at number 94. The album was honored ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
