History & Biography Messiah’s Kiss is a German heavy metal band formed by former Repression (an '80s and '90s metal band) members in 2001. The band, comprised of American Tirelli and the British Banks, issued its debut album in 2002 courtesy of the German Steamhammer/SPV label. The group played at Wacken 2002 and toured with Doro. The band’s Metal album was issued on the same label as Annihilator’s album of the same name, but three years earlier. Alexander Hitz played on the first two albums. Tirelli would guest on vocals live for Riot in 2005 and 2007. Dragon Heart featured guest guitar solos by Accept man Herman Frank who also produced the albums. The album was recorded in 2005. It also featured the same cover artwork as Skylark’s 1999 album, Gate Of Hell. The band played at the Magic Circle festival in 2007. The band had not toured otherwise. A keyboardist, Simone Dyllong, accompanied the band. Jason Banks, the brother of Wayne, had just joined the act. David Shankle, of Manowar fame, was earlier announced as a new guitarist. Singer Mike was diagnosed with stage 3 stomach cancer in 2008. He would eventually recover.
No album appeared until 2014. Get Your Bulls Out! The band was on Massacre. Jason, Wayne’s brother, was on second guitar here. The band announced a concert for 2022. Tirelli was busy with Holy Mother.
Reviews MESSIAH’S KISS - DRAGONHEART - SPV
No question about it that the band’s name and album title reek of
unoriginality. That was also the feeling when the album was played
for the first couple of times. The reaction that Dragonheart is
largely unoriginal did not go away, although the album came into its
own after repeat listens. This is very good heavy metal after all.
Messiah’s Kiss’ strongest suit is the vocals of Mike Tirelli who also
sings for Riot. He is absolutely a heavy metal singer. The band adds
every required ingredient of heavy and power metal like power riffing
and precise clean leads and pushes Dragonheart higher and higher.
Babylon smacks of Accept, Where The Falcons Cry stands out for its
gritty and soulful vocals and the title track is a tribute to Judas
Priest and its Painkiller album. Thunders Of The Night is there for
guitar buffs, City Of Angels is influenced by Rainbow and shows off
Mike’s deeper vocals, while Nocturnal is a speedy cut that sounds
like Accept’s faster moments. Once again. Messiah’s Kiss is a cool
band for fans of Judas Priest, Metalium, Accept and Helloween, but
obviously has little to offer that is new. Speaking of which, the
album’s cover artwork was already seen on Skylark’s 1999 album and
the same girl appeared on Silent Force's Walk The Earth album. - Anna
Tergel
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