MICHAEL KISKE: Japanese Version Of 'Past In Different Ways' To Include ELVIS Cover

July 18, 2008

Former HELLOWEEN singer Michael Kiske's new solo album, "Past In Different Ways", will be released in Japan by King Records on July 23 with a bonus track — a cover of ELVIS PRESLEY's "How The Web Was Woven".

"Past In Different Ways" features acoustic and stripped down reworked versions of some of HELLOWEEN's classics that Kiske wrote and recorded in his early days with the legendary German heavy metal band.

Working in a creatively free environment helped Michael to look at his past with different eyes and brought the idea of working again on the songs that Michael wrote for HELLOWEEN during his years with the band. The result is "Past In Different Ways", a record which includes brand new recordings of Kiske's songs taken off the two "Keeper" albums, "Chameleon" and "Pink Bubbles Go Ape", plus the brand new song "Different Ways".

The unconventional arrangements of many of the tracks will surprise and delight many of his fans and more surprising is to see how well these songs sound with a basic acoustic arrangement, without the "useless weight" and with new keys. "Songs like 'In The Night' or 'When The Sinner', which were never favourites of mine, are much cooler and much more convincing now for my ears," says Michael.

The album was recorded and mixed in Hamburg under Michael Kiske's direction and features longtime collaborators such as Sandro Giampietro on guitar, Fontaine Burnett on bass and Karsten Nagel on drums.

Kiske concludes: "It was not always easy for me emotionally to deal with this material. Music somehow seems to preserve emotional memories and I connect big human disappointments with the last years of that time. There's also something very unsatisfying about re-recording old songs; it's always MUCH better to write new stuff, but I wanted to make those songs mine again. And in spite of the fact that I strongly felt for the last couple of years that I rather have to build myself a new base of friends, it's always good to make peace with your past."

Check out audio samples at this location.

(Thanks: MichaelKiske.net)

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