''Unarmed – Best of 25th Anniversary'' is the sixth compilation album by German

power metal Power metal is a subgenre of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional heavy metal with speed metal, often within a symphonic context. Generally, power metal is characterized by a faster, lighter, and more uplifting sound, in co ...

band

Helloween Helloween is a German power metal band founded in 1984 in Hamburg by members of bands Iron Fist, Gentry, Second Hell and Powerfool. The band has at times been called one of the most influential European heavy metal bands of the 1980s. Its first ...

. It is a compilation in celebration of the band's 25th anniversary, which contains re-recorded versions of Helloween songs in an acoustic/symphonic style. It includes a 70-piece

Prague Symphony Orchestra The Prague Symphony Orchestra ( ''FOK'') is a Czech orchestra based in Prague. The orchestra has traditionally been known by the acronym 'FOK', standing for 'Film-Opera-Koncert', reflecting the orchestra's fields of activity as envisioned by its fo ...

performing "The Keeper's Trilogy", a 17-minute medley consisting of the songs "Halloween", "Keeper of the Seven Keys" and "The King for a 1000 Years". Many guest musicians are featured on the tracks. Commenting on the album on 2011, the bass guitarist

Markus Grosskopf Markus Grosskopf (born 21 September 1965) is a German musician best known as the bass guitarist, backing vocalist and a founding member of the power metal band Helloween. Biography Grosskopf started playing bass at the age of 15 when he became ...

said: The vocalist

Andi Deris Andreas "Andi" Deris (born 18 August 1964) is a German singer, best known as one of the three co-lead vocalists of the power metal band Helloween, and co-founder and former lead singer of the metal band Pink Cream 69. Singing style Deris has ...

, however, panned the album in a 2015 interview, saying he never liked the idea of doing it and that the record company "raped" the band to do it. He commented:

Track listing

Charts

Credits

–

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

Michael Weikath Michael Ingo Joachim "Weiki" Weikath (born 7 August 1962) is a German musician, best known as a founding member and one of the guitarists of pioneering power metal band Helloween. Biography Weikath was born in Hamburg and was musical from a ...

–

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

(tracks 1-5, 7-11) * Sascha Gerstner – guitar *

–

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

(tracks 1-5, 7-11) * Dani Löble –

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

(tracks 1-5, 7-11) *

(tracks 5, 11) *Gero Drnek (

Fury in the Slaughterhouse Fury in the Slaughterhouse is a German rock band from Hanover, founded in 1987. Their hits include "Time to Wonder", "Every Generation Got Its Own Disease", "Won't Forget These Days", "Radio Orchid", "Dancing in the Sunshine of the Dark", "Milk ...

) -

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

*Andreas Becker (

Peter Maffay Peter Alexander Makkay (born 30 August 1949), known as Peter Maffay (), is a Romanian-born German musician, singer, and composer. Being a veteran musician, he is often credited for motivating audiences with his emotional lyrics and powerful mel ...

) - guitar (tracks 2, 4, 7, 9) *Albie Donnelly (

Supercharge In theoretical physics, a supercharge is a generator of supersymmetry transformations. It is an example of the general notion of a charge (physics), charge in physics. Supercharge, denoted by the symbol Q, is an operator which transforms bosons in ...

) -

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

(track 1) *Matthias Ulmer -

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

(tracks 1, 3, 5, 10, 11) *

Nippy Noya Nippy Noya (born 27 February 1946) is an Indonesian, Netherlands-based percussionist and songwriter, specialising in congas, kalimba, bongos, campana, güiro, cabasa, shekere, caxixi, triangle and the berimbau. History Son of Japanese Taiko d ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

(tracks 1-4, 6, 7, 9, 10) *Harriet Ohlsson ( Hellsongs) - duet vocals,

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

(track 6) *Kalle Karlsson (Hellsongs) - guitar, arrangement (track 6) *Johan Bringhed (Hellsongs) - piano, arrangement (track 6) *Richard Naxton, Johnny Clucas, Dan Hoadley, Chris Tickner, Richard Collier, Gerry O'Beime, Gunther Laudahn, Lawrence White, Jan-Eric Kohrs, Rob Fardell ( Gregorian) -

choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

* Charlie Bauerfeind - producer (tracks 1-5, 7-11) *Petter Ericsson - producer (track 6)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Unarmed - Best of 25th Anniversary 2009 compilation albums Helloween albums SPV/Steamhammer compilation albums Albums produced by Charlie Bauerfeind