Artist: Masterplan
Label: AFM Records
Released: 2003
This one is the right way to kick off the new metal season. The debut of this new band is stacked with battle-hardened musicians. Two Hellowen castoffs (the band supposedly just fired them after the last tour): guitar maestro Roland Grapow and Uli Kusch, one of the top names in German power metal drumming. Add Jan S. Eckert (Iron Savior) on bass and Jorn Lande (ex-Ark, Beyond Twilight, Jorn) on vocals. Kusch and Grapow already proved themselves as outstanding songwriters in Helloween, and this time they’ve delivered 11 top-notch songs. The two of them carried that highly atmospheric “feeling” and all the intensity of the last two Helloween records straight into the debut of their new band. It hardly needs saying that the songs are bursting with emotion, because we’ve got Jorn Lande, right now one of those singers many a band would love to have a clone of behind the mic. In short, the guy who had even the most hardcore Whitesnake fans unable to believe it was Lande and not David Coverdale singing on “Once Bitten…” (The Snakes) from 1998 has added an incredible contrast to the Masterplan debut. Man, this sounds fresh!
The compositions are varied, from the lightning-fast “Crawling From Hell” with a killer middle section that carries that signature Helloween-style picking while the keyboards build an amazing mood in the background, to the oriental-flavored, mid-tempo atmospheric bombast of “Bleeding Eyes”. And they close the record in the best way possible, with the fantastic “When Love Comes Close”, where Lande’s hard-rock-flavored vocals are especially pleasing. There are variations of amazing transitions where every note always finds its right place, where the keyboards are an equal partner to the guitar the whole way through, where the two ex-pumpkins really deliver all the brilliance we expect from them. On the Helloween-style “Heroes”, which is the most clichéd of the bunch in the chorus, M. Kiske jumps in with a voice that’s still unbelievably well preserved (man, what a shame metal doesn’t do it for him anymore). The songs are short, the motifs are neatly stitched together and flow smoothly into one another, so not a single song “drags”. The sound is full throughout. The guys now and then conjure up a modern, distorted sonic beat of open riffing in “Enlighten Me” (with an excellent chorus) or “Into The Light”.
Uncompromising and totally wild, Masterplan have given the power metal scene a good airing out. For all fans of Helloween and their quality clones, like Edguy or Avantasia, Masterplan are an essential addition to your record collection! Hm… Even though 2003 has barely started, I can already say this is probably the debut of 2003, and that Helloween have become the German Deep Purple with a whole bunch of offspring. They’ve already got three kids: Gamma Ray, Iron Savior and the newborn Masterplan.
Lineup
Jorn Lande – vocals
Roland Grapow – guitar
Axel Mackenrott – keyboards
Jan S. Eckert – bass
Uli Kusch – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Michael Kiske – vocals on #6
Janne Warman – keyboards
Ferdy Doernberg – keyboards on #8
Juergen Attig – bass
Production
Andy Sneap & Masterplan
Tracklist
1. Spirit Never Die
2. Enlighten Me
3. Kind Hearted Light
4. Crystal Night
5. Soulburn
6. Heroes
7. Sail On
8. Into The Light
9. Crawling From Hell
10. Bleeding Eyes
11. When Love Comes Close
Album length: 52:33
