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The band Masterplan's self-titled debut album is, to me, one of the best releases of the year. Hyped as "the new band of ex-Helloween Roland Grapow and Uli Kusch" Masterplan doesn't remain as just a new forum for these two guys to challenge their old band, but is a powerful unit in it's own right. Bassist Jan S. Eckert, keysman Axel Mackenrott and vocalist Jorn Lande are all equal parts of this new band that has a big chance of becoming one of the leading names in metal field. The coalition of bandmembers works very seamlessly both in writing the songs and playing them - and that should be expected as these guys aren't just a bunch of no-names starting a new band. In my At Vance review I complained about the fact that power metal bands of today have the tendency to sound really much alike, and hoped that some would come up with more unique ideas for their songs. Agreed, to some degree this same goes for Masterplan as some songs have a certain "basic" feel to them, but still all in all this album has a good dose of variety and creativity in songs and that helps Masterplan to rise above the bulk of bands that make the power metal scene of today. Mind you, labeling this album "power metal" is in fact misleading because of diversity of the songs, like the song "Crystal Night" - with it's heavy guitars it's closer to classic metal a'la Dio or Judas Priest than speedy power of Helloween for example. As one can expect, all the players are hard as iron professionals, who know which way to hold their instruments and the chemistry between the musicians works very well. The big part of the band is definitely Jorn Lande, who is one of the best "new" vocalists in metal. The norwegian has an outstanding voice that alone separates Masterplan from your basic metal groups. Personally I fell in love with Lande's vocals when I first heard him sing on Nikolo Kotzev's excellent "Nostradamus" rock opera, and was further impressed after listening to the stuff he's done either with Ark or on his solo albums. Capable of adjusting his singing depending on a song, Lande's voice is very powerful sometimes reminding you from David Coverdale or even Ronnie James Dio (like on Crystal Night on this album). All of the songs on the album are good but the high quality that some songs have doesn't quite carry throughout the album. Those high quality songs feature "Enlighten Me" and "Kind Hearted Light" that are both good showcases of band's talent; great up-tempo power metal tracks that can easily make you press the back button of the CD player after they've ended... "Crystal Night" a dark and heavy song about holocaust pounds on with especially Grapow's guitars and Lande's voice sounding full of anger, perfect for this song... "Crawling From Hell" strikes with it's heaviness, and my absolute favourite has become the track "Soulburn"; different sections of this song really make it stand out as the premier track of the album; soft verses of the beginning, absolutely brilliant melodic chorus and a heavy bridge with strong vocals and keyboards (the new Tarot album, springs to mind) all mix up to make a truly great song. But, as I feel the aforementioned tracks are among the best I've heard for a while, the rest of the songs get a bit trampled underneath them, falling more or less flat in comparison. Although most still could be categorized as good or even above average (power)metal songs, the surprisingly weak ballad "When Love Comes Close", for instance sounds like poor man's Whitesnake and a very helloweenish track "Heroes" is one of those "band-anthems" heard so many times before... Still, the amount of great songs on
this album overshadow the dissappointment caused by some others and
those good songs alone make Masterplan one of the best albums of the
year. People have and will compare Masterplan to Helloween and though
I feel such comparison quite useless, I have to say I like Masterplan
a lot more than Helloween's new "Rabbit Don't Come Easy".
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Captain Scurvy / June 2003 |
