Attack (band)

Attack
Attack in the Jovel Music Hall Münster (1985)
General information
origin	Hanover , Germany
Genre (s)	Heavy metal , power metal
founding	1984
Founding members
Bass, drums, guitar, vocals	Ricky van Helden
Keyboard	Thomas St Jones
guitar	Andy Chamber
Current occupation
Bass, keyboard, guitar, cello, flute, vocals	Ricky van Helden (since 1984)
guitar	Thorsten Köhne (since 1995)
guitar	Peter Oko (since 1992)
Drums	Athanasios Tsoukas (since 1988)
former members
guitar	Andy Niewidok (1984–1986)
Drums	Thomas Evermann (1984–1986)
guitar	Jörg Franz (1985)
guitar	Chreddy Riepert (1988–1990)
guitar	Gerd Sossnierz (1988–1994)
guitar	Jens Petersen (1991-1992)
Guitar, violin, keyboard	Matthias Hornschuh (1993–1994)
Drums	Frank Ullrich (1996–1997)

Attack (spelling: ATTACK ) is a German rock band around the multi-instrumentalist and singer Ricky van Helden , who dedicated themselves to epic Power Metal . What was noticeable about the band was that not only instruments such as guitar, bass and drums were used for this genre, but also cello , flute and violin .

history

Founded in Hanover in 1984 by Thomas St. Jones, Andy Kammer and Ricky van Helden, ATTACK recorded their debut album Danger in the Air just six months later . This was followed by a tour through Germany, before the band released their second LP Return of the Evil in 1985 with a different line-up , which also attracted attention abroad. After further touring and the recording of the third album Beast Killer left Ricky van Helden Hanover to come up with a new line-up (Gerd Sossnierz, guitar; Chreddy Riepert, guitar; "Zacky" Athanasios Tsoukas , drums) and a recording contract with ZYX Music the concept album Destinies of War einzuspielen.

ATTACK (1989)

Problems with management and the record company forced the band to take a break, but in 1992 they reported back with the CD Seven Years in the Past , which was released on the band's own label Iceland Records , and immediately rose to number 16 in the Japanese charts a. That brought the band not only long-term contracts with JVC / Victor Entertainment and Virgin Music in the land of the rising sun, but also further international attention. As a result, for example, ATTACK was represented on the "Pure Metal-Sampler Vol 2" together with bands like Running Wild , Angra and Wolfsbane to present the song On the Run .

ATTACK (1995)

The logical consequence were albums such as Revitalize (1994), with the guitarist, keyboardist and violinist Matthias Hornschuh , who later became famous as a film composer, and The Secret Place (1995), on which Peter Oko, who was already on Seven Years in the Past participated, and Thorsten Köhne took over the guitar parts.

In 1997 the band went back to the studio to record the long player "Deadlocked" on the keyboards with the new drummer Frank Ullrich (ex Grave Digger ; ex Living Death ) and founding member Thomas St. Jones. With this production, ATTACK musically took a much more progressive direction. After the recordings, Ricky van Helden , who had been the only constant in the group until then, withdrew from the music scene for the time being for unknown reasons.

At the end of 2011, the Greek label Lighten the Underground released a limited vinyl version of the 1995 album The Secret Place . At the same time, a CD version of this production was released by the Greek company Steel Legacy . In the same year, the German record company Mighty Monster Records released an 80-minute ATTACK compilation entitled Warriors of Time . Further re-releases followed in 2012 in Greece and South America.

There are sometimes quite different cover versions of some ATTACK albums. The production Destinies of War alone is available in 3 variants, with the Japanese release also having 2 bonus tracks. The same applies to Revitalize , but here on the European CD, contrary to the Japanese, 15 instead of 12 pieces can be heard.

style

Stylistically, the band ATTACK is difficult to classify, as they repeatedly managed to merge classic elements such as Edvard Grieg , Modest Mussorgsky and Johann Sebastian Bach with progressive influences and heavy heavy metal parts. By using cello, flute, violin and the like, the group differed from many other bands in the genre at that time, but without missing a clear song structure. Typical for this are works like Death Rider , Return of the Warrior or I Know , but also songs like Wonderland , In the Gloom and Walk Alone . Even the frequent line-up changes in the group could not change the basic concept significantly. In terms of text, predominantly fairytale-like, mystical themes from the Middle Ages were processed, which were occasionally provided with a socially critical hint to the present.

Discography

• 1984: Danger in the Air (Pro-Sound-Records)
• 1985: Return of the Evil (Phonogram)
• 1986: Beastkiller (Sonic)
• 1989: Destinies of War (ZYX Records)
• 1992: Seven Years in the Past (Iceland Records)
• 1994: Revitalize (compil)
• 1995: The Secret Place (JVC / Victor Entertainment)
• 1998: Deadlocked (Iceland Records)
• 2011: Warriors of Time (compil)

Sampler contributions

• 1993: On the Run Pure Metal Vol. 2 (JVC / Victor)

Singles

• 1984 Mouse in a Maze (Good Time Records)

Re-releases (extracts)

• 1993 Destinies of War (Iceland Records)
• 1993 Return of the Evil (EWM / Tin Can Discs)
• 2002 Danger in the Air (Parodise Records)
• 2011 The Secret Place (Vinyl-Lighten the Underground Records)
• 2012 The Secret Place (Steel Legacy Records)
• 2013 Seven Years in the Past (Vinyl-Steel Legacy Records)
• 2015 Seven Years in the Past (Eat Metal Records)
• 2015 Revitalize (Metalizer Records)
• 2016 Destinies of War (Metalizer Records)
• 2016 Destinies of War (Cano Metal Records)
• 2016 Danger in the Air (Metalizer Records)

literature

• Matthias Mader, Otger Jeske, Arno Hofmann: Heavy Metal made in Germany . IP Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-931624-08-0 .
• Martin Popoff : The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal . Collectors Guide Pub., 2003, ISBN 1-896522-32-7 .
• Matthias Herr: Matthias Herr's Heavy Metal Lexicon Vol. 5 . In-house production, 1996.

Web links

• Literature by and about Attack in the catalog of the German National Library
• Discography at glory.metalkings.ru , accessed August 21, 2012
• Attack on metal-archives.com
• Schweres-metall.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ librariusmetallicus.com
2. ↑ psychocydd.co.uk ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ geocities.ws
4. ↑ musik-sammler.de
5. ↑ lightentheunderground.blogspot.de , accessed on August 21, 2012
6. ^ The Valley Of The Damned. ( Memento of May 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed June 17, 2016
7. ↑ glory.metalkings.ru ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ discogs.com
9. ↑ attackmetal.com
10. ↑ attackmetal.com
11. ↑ metallyrica.com