GAMMA RAY New Album

GAMMA RAY - Michael Kiske To Guest On New Album




In 1995 Michael Kiske did a collaboration with GAMMA RAY in the album Land Of The Free singing on 'Time To Break Free' and the high chorus of 'Land Of The Free'. After years of rumours of Kiske joining the band, 14 years later Michael will do a collaboration in the new Gamma Ray album. The CD titled To The Metal will be release on January 29, 2010 via earMUSIC/Edel.

In the next days, Michael Kiske will record his part in the album but he won't do lead-vocals it's just a chorus.

To The Metal will be made available in four versions:

- as a regular jewel case CD
- as a limited edition featuring an additional DVD (including an exciting making-of)
- as a red vinyl in gatefold packaging
- as a collectors’ edition featuring CD and 7” vinyl with 2 unreleased tracks, completely hand-signed

To The Metal's album artwork was created by Herve Monjeaud, and will feature the following tracks:

'Rise'
'Deadlands'
'Mother Angel'
'No Need To Cry'
'Empathy'
'To The Metal'
'All You Need To Know'
'Time To Live'
'Shine Forever'
'Breaking Away'

(Thanks www.michaelkiske.net)

GAMMA RAY - New Audio Sample Streaming






Germany's GAMMA RAY have updated their MySpace player to stream a sample of the title track for their upcoming To The Metal Album. Check it out at this location.

As previously reported, in 1995 Michael Kiske did a collaboration with GAMMA RAY in the album Land Of The Free singing on 'Time To Break Free' and the high chorus of 'Land Of The Free'. After years of rumours of Kiske joining the band, 14 years later Michael will do a collaboration in the new Gamma Ray album.

To The Metal will be release on January 29th, 2010 via earMUSIC/Edel.

To The Metal will be made available in four versions:

- as a regular jewel case CD
- as a limited edition featuring an additional DVD (including an exciting making-of)
- as a red vinyl in gatefold packaging
- as a collectors’ edition featuring CD and 7” vinyl with 2 unreleased tracks, completely hand-signed

To The Metal's album artwork was created by Herve Monjeaud, and will feature the following tracks:

'Rise'
'Deadlands'
'Mother Angel'
'No Need To Cry'
'Empathy'
'To The Metal'
'All You Need To Know'
'Time To Live'
'Shine Forever'
'Breaking Away'

(Thanks www.michaelkiske.net)

GAMMA RAY Members Discuss To The Metal Album; Video Available



GAMMA RAY's new album To The Metal will be released on January 29th via earMUSIC/Edel.

Members of the band discuss select tracks from the album in the video clips below.

Kai Hansen (vocals/guitar), Dirk Schlächter (bass), Henjo Richter (guitar) and Daniel Zimmermann (drums) recorded a total of twelve new songs at their own studio in Hamburg in autumn 2009. Ten of them will feature on the regular album release, and two additional bonus tracks can be heard on different editions of the album.

To The Metal will be made available in four versions - check out the art work below:

- as a regular jewel case CD:





as a limited edition featuring an additional DVD:





- as a red vinyl in gatefold packaging:


To The Metal will also be released as a collectors’ edition featuring CD and 7” vinyl with two unreleased tracks, completely hand-signed.

To The Metal's album artwork was created by Herve Monjeaud, and will feature the following tracks:

'Rise'
'Deadlands'
'Mother Angel'
'No Need To Cry'
'Empathy'
'To The Metal'
'All You Need To Know'
'Time To Live'
'Shine Forever'
'Breaking Away'

DVD (included in limited-edition version) features a 60-minute documentary shot in HD, featuring interviews, 'making-of-the-album' material, performance footage of classic Gamma Ray songs.

Bonus material:
- three video clips (including 'To The Metal')
- interview with Kai Hansen

Gamma Ray recently updated their MySpace player to stream a sample of the title track for their upcoming To The Metal Album. Check it out at this location.

Gamma Ray – To The Metal

Founded and fronted by Kai Hansen after his departure from Helloween, Gamma Ray became one of the most prominent bands in the European heavy metal. Along with the likes of Helloween, Blind Guardian, Primal Fear and Running Wild, Gamma Ray forms the core of the European power metal movement. With the concept album “Land Of The Free” (1995), Gamma Ray became internationally-known, touring with bands like Iron Maiden, HammerFall and Stratovarius all over the place. Their 6th studio album, “Powerplant”, turned out to be a chart breaker all over the world and hits like “Heaven Can Wait”, “Rebellion In Dreamland” and “Valley Of The Kings” became global metal classics. Gamma Ray is fronted by lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Kai Hansen (founding member of Helloween; one of the most influential figures in power metal). It would be a capital mistake not to acknowledge the importance of the remaining band members: Dirk Schlächter on bass (but also behind the mixing desk as sound engineer and producer), Henjo Richter who provides great guitar solos and evocative keyboard parts and Dan Zimmermann, a real thunder on drums.

The new Gamma Ray album, “To The Metal”, has been recorded and produced in Hamburg, Germany - the band’s hometown. After the last studio album, “Land Of The Free II”, released in 2007, which charted all over Europe and ended up being one of the band best sellers, Gamma Ray started the songwriting and production of the new record with a fresh approach and an energy that you would normally find in bands releasing their first records. “To The Metal” is the 10th studio album in 21 years of worldwide success and a new real diamond in their metal history. As the title already assumes, it’s a real heavy metal record showing their never ending experimental creativity. “To The Metal” has the classic Gamma Ray sound but includes also some influences of gothic (“Mother Angel”, “All You Need To Know”) and Industrial (“Empathy”). Driven by the title track, which is destined to be considered as one of the best Gamma Ray songs ever (if not one of the best Kai Hansen compositions), a real tribute to the metal genre that echoes of the best Judas Priest and Iron Maiden vintage sound.

Gamma Ray’s new album proves once again that there is no better band than them when it comes to classic heavy metal! All classic Helloween fans will be delighted to know that Michael Kiske (the singer of the million sellers “Keeper Of The Seventh Keys I and II”) will team again with Hansen and sings a song on the album together with Hansen.

GAMMA RAY - The Metal In Your Head


Hot Flashes







By Carl Begai (photos by Axel Jusseit)

Twenty years in the trenches have earned Gamma Ray the sort of attention that younger bands would kill for. Every new album is accompanied prior to release by a deafening buzz in the press and amongst the fans, in large part because the band is the brainchild of Helloween co-founder Kai Hansen, who jumped ship at their old school peak to launch the grand solo experiment that became Gamma Ray. Whether that buzz is maintained during a record’s run comes down to a matter of taste, as the band is known for throwing hit-and-miss curves from album to album. Case in point with new outing To The Metal! which features Gamma Ray easing up on the gas pedal they punched through the floorboards with their previous record, Land Of The Free II. It’s not a dud by any means but it most certainly is not the over-the-top shredfest some people were expecting.

First up, however, is a look back at Gamma Ray’s world tour for Land Of The Free II which took place in 2007 / 2008. As improbable as it seemed at the time the band hit the road for the duration with Helloween, a pairing that nobody believed would ever happen given the years of badmouthing between certain members of Helloween and Hansen. It was a conflict that erupted in the wake of Hansen’s departure in 1989, growing from a molehill into a mountain thanks to offhand and out-of-context comments in the press. Whatever feud existed, real or imagined, was put to rest by the extended road trip.

“It was really like a big family on tour,” says bassist Dirk Schlächter, who has experienced the Helloween fallout as Hansen’s right hand man since Gamma Ray’s inception. “There were no fights or egos, and I’m not saying that just to keep everything calm by being nice (laughs). It was a really relaxed situation for both bands. It was a nice combination having Gamma Ray and Helloween out there together. It was a good idea and it was good for both bands. After the Majestic tour (in 2005), which was no big success to be honest, the best thing for us to do was go on tour with Helloween. Of course, with the organization and the playing times and Kai’s ego (laughs) it took a while to sort out, but in the end everyone was happy with the way things turned out.”


suite............

<A href="http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=269768331&albumID=1108492&imageID=18804421">

Addressing the new album’s approach, Schlächter chalks it up to Gamma Ray doing what comes naturally rather than making a momentous decision to step away from their trademark ‘Ride The Sky’ sound. Not to say To The Metal! is painfully laid back, but it’s certainly a far cry from an album loaded with speed metal anthems like ‘Man On A Mission’, ‘Somewhere Out In Space’ and ‘To Mother Earth’.

“It wasn’t intentional, but then Gamma Ray has never made the same album twice. Land Of The Free II wasn’t planned either; we just kept the title because we couldn’t come up with a better one (laughs). But, when we started working on the first few songs there were moments that reminded us of the times we had recording Land Of The Free. That’s where the idea for the album title came from. When Gamma Ray starts an album the first four or five songs create the vibe of the album. We’re able to pick up the elements from the songs and keep them in mind for the songs that follow.”

Such as a very apparent yen for all things Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. The album sports hints of both, the title track being very obvious bookend to Rob Halford’s theme song ‘Metal Gods’ and ‘Mother Angel’ recalling the Screaming For Vengeance classic ‘Devil’s Child’. Schlächter thinks nothing of the comparisons. Gamma Ray have been getting them for years.

“Yeah, there are some Priest-ish riffs in there and of course some Maiden-ish riffs, but things will always be like that with us. People criticize us for that but it’s just not possible to play this kind of music in E without being reminded of Iron Maiden. We’re tuned down to D now, which makes things sound a bit different, but if you play the chords E, D, and C – which they use in all combinations 10 times on every album – it will always remind you of part of a Maiden song. It’s not that we’re ripping something off from those bands, it’s just the shape of the music.”

“I find it funny when people call Gamma Ray power metal because the term didn’t even exist when we started doing this,” Schlächter adds. “I’ve heard people call us German melodic speed metal as well and I’m like… ‘Huh?’ (laughs). That’s why we called this new album To The Metal!. This is our definition of Gamma Ray’s music. We don’t need to have a stamp on it. It’s just our kind of music, the stuff we like to play.”




It’s fair to say that the odd lack of double bass on To The Metal! makes the similarities to Priest and Maiden much more obvious when compared to previous Gamma Ray albums. Schlächter agrees.

“The funny thing is there’s only one typical Gamma Ray speed track on To The Metal! with double bass on it all the way through and that’s ‘Rise’. But, when we were at the end of the mixing stage and the mastering had already started we realized that there is still a lot of double bass on the album (laughs). It just doesn’t go all the way through the songs.”

Hansen is seen as the creative force behind Gamma Ray not only because he launched Gamma Ray, but because Helloween’s fortunes and sound changed significantly when he called it quits. Schlächter credits Hansen with driving the boat, but he insists that the new album, like the last several, was a band effort.

“Kai more or less writes half the songs on any Gamma Ray album and the rest of the writes the other half. Kai is a very good songwriter and he composes directly with his voice and the vocal lines, which is something me and the other guys can’t do. We compose the music first and then we start thinking about the final vocals, so we end up having to put some of our ideas on the shelf because they don’t work with vocals (laughs). We’ve been together such a long time that it made sense to do things that way, and with these new songs Kai had a very clear vision of how they should sound. It was hard to add any extra ideas to that. We worked on the song arrangements as a band, though. We played all the songs together in the rehearsal room and made the final arrangements all together.”

“It actually hasn’t been like that all the time,” he reveals. “In the past some songs were written at home by only one person from the first to the last note. They would change a bit during production, but other than that they went from home to the studio without any real influence from one of the other guys. Over the last few years we’ve changed that and now the songs have to go through the room, so to say. And songs like ‘To The Metal’ were created in the rehearsal room. We just jammed around this riff, Kai took it home and made a demo out of it. Then we played it again and recorded it and that was that.”

“We’re not afraid to tell another member of the band that what they’ve come up with is absolutely boring,” Schlächter continues, further crushing the idea of Hansen playing lord and master over his bandmates. “Okay, maybe not exactly like that but you get the idea. We’re four individuals playing in a band together, so we have respect for each other’s thoughts and ideas. And when things are good they’re really good, like they were making this new album.”

GAMMA RAY - The Metal In Your Head





By Carl Begai (photos by Axel Jusseit)

Twenty years in the trenches have earned Gamma Ray the sort of attention that younger bands would kill for. Every new album is accompanied prior to release by a deafening buzz in the press and amongst the fans, in large part because the band is the brainchild of Helloween co-founder Kai Hansen, who jumped ship at their old school peak to launch the grand solo experiment that became Gamma Ray. Whether that buzz is maintained during a record’s run comes down to a matter of taste, as the band is known for throwing hit-and-miss curves from album to album. Case in point with new outing To The Metal! which features Gamma Ray easing up on the gas pedal they punched through the floorboards with their previous record, Land Of The Free II. It’s not a dud by any means but it most certainly is not the over-the-top shredfest some people were expecting.

First up, however, is a look back at Gamma Ray’s world tour for Land Of The Free II which took place in 2007 / 2008. As improbable as it seemed at the time the band hit the road for the duration with Helloween, a pairing that nobody believed would ever happen given the years of badmouthing between certain members of Helloween and Hansen. It was a conflict that erupted in the wake of Hansen’s departure in 1989, growing from a molehill into a mountain thanks to offhand and out-of-context comments in the press. Whatever feud existed, real or imagined, was put to rest by the extended road trip.

“It was really like a big family on tour,” says bassist Dirk Schlächter, who has experienced the Helloween fallout as Hansen’s right hand man since Gamma Ray’s inception. “There were no fights or egos, and I’m not saying that just to keep everything calm by being nice (laughs). It was a really relaxed situation for both bands. It was a nice combination having Gamma Ray and Helloween out there together. It was a good idea and it was good for both bands. After the Majestic tour (in 2005), which was no big success to be honest, the best thing for us to do was go on tour with Helloween. Of course, with the organization and the playing times and Kai’s ego (laughs) it took a while to sort out, but in the end everyone was happy with the way things turned out.”




Addressing the new album’s approach, Schlächter chalks it up to Gamma Ray doing what comes naturally rather than making a momentous decision to step away from their trademark ‘Ride The Sky’ sound. Not to say To The Metal! is painfully laid back, but it’s certainly a far cry from an album loaded with speed metal anthems like ‘Man On A Mission’, ‘Somewhere Out In Space’ and ‘To Mother Earth’.

“It wasn’t intentional, but then Gamma Ray has never made the same album twice. Land Of The Free II wasn’t planned either; we just kept the title because we couldn’t come up with a better one (laughs). But, when we started working on the first few songs there were moments that reminded us of the times we had recording Land Of The Free. That’s where the idea for the album title came from. When Gamma Ray starts an album the first four or five songs create the vibe of the album. We’re able to pick up the elements from the songs and keep them in mind for the songs that follow.”

Such as a very apparent yen for all things Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. The album sports hints of both, the title track being very obvious bookend to Rob Halford’s theme song ‘Metal Gods’ and ‘Mother Angel’ recalling the Screaming For Vengeance classic ‘Devil’s Child’. Schlächter thinks nothing of the comparisons. Gamma Ray have been getting them for years.

“Yeah, there are some Priest-ish riffs in there and of course some Maiden-ish riffs, but things will always be like that with us. People criticize us for that but it’s just not possible to play this kind of music in E without being reminded of Iron Maiden. We’re tuned down to D now, which makes things sound a bit different, but if you play the chords E, D, and C – which they use in all combinations 10 times on every album – it will always remind you of part of a Maiden song. It’s not that we’re ripping something off from those bands, it’s just the shape of the music.”

“I find it funny when people call Gamma Ray power metal because the term didn’t even exist when we started doing this,” Schlächter adds. “I’ve heard people call us German melodic speed metal as well and I’m like… ‘Huh?’ (laughs). That’s why we called this new album To The Metal!. This is our definition of Gamma Ray’s music. We don’t need to have a stamp on it. It’s just our kind of music, the stuff we like to play.”

SUITE...................

It’s fair to say that the odd lack of double bass on To The Metal! makes the similarities to Priest and Maiden much more obvious when compared to previous Gamma Ray albums. Schlächter agrees.

“The funny thing is there’s only one typical Gamma Ray speed track on To The Metal! with double bass on it all the way through and that’s ‘Rise’. But, when we were at the end of the mixing stage and the mastering had already started we realized that there is still a lot of double bass on the album (laughs). It just doesn’t go all the way through the songs.”

Hansen is seen as the creative force behind Gamma Ray not only because he launched Gamma Ray, but because Helloween’s fortunes and sound changed significantly when he called it quits. Schlächter credits Hansen with driving the boat, but he insists that the new album, like the last several, was a band effort.

“Kai more or less writes half the songs on any Gamma Ray album and the rest of the writes the other half. Kai is a very good songwriter and he composes directly with his voice and the vocal lines, which is something me and the other guys can’t do. We compose the music first and then we start thinking about the final vocals, so we end up having to put some of our ideas on the shelf because they don’t work with vocals (laughs). We’ve been together such a long time that it made sense to do things that way, and with these new songs Kai had a very clear vision of how they should sound. It was hard to add any extra ideas to that. We worked on the song arrangements as a band, though. We played all the songs together in the rehearsal room and made the final arrangements all together.”

“It actually hasn’t been like that all the time,” he reveals. “In the past some songs were written at home by only one person from the first to the last note. They would change a bit during production, but other than that they went from home to the studio without any real influence from one of the other guys. Over the last few years we’ve changed that and now the songs have to go through the room, so to say. And songs like ‘To The Metal’ were created in the rehearsal room. We just jammed around this riff, Kai took it home and made a demo out of it. Then we played it again and recorded it and that was that.”

“We’re not afraid to tell another member of the band that what they’ve come up with is absolutely boring,” Schlächter continues, further crushing the idea of Hansen playing lord and master over his bandmates. “Okay, maybe not exactly like that but you get the idea. We’re four individuals playing in a band together, so we have respect for each other’s thoughts and ideas. And when things are good they’re really good, like they were making this new album.”