Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: August 5, 2022
Production: Vanden Plas & Markus Teske
Album length: 100.50 min
Genre: Progressive Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
Vanden Plas, Germany’s long-lived progressive metal veterans, dropped a new live album, “Live & Immortal”, at the start of this August. It’s their third live record since the band formed back in (the ancient) year 1986. The first, “Spirit Of Live”, came out in 2000, and the second, “The Seraphic Live Works”, in 2017.
The interesting thing about this new live document is (once again) that, much like its 2017 predecessor, it arrives a few years after the original recording. While 2017’s “The Seraphic Live Works” came from the band’s show at the American ProgPower festival in 2011, “Live & Immortal” (2022) comes from a pre-New Year’s gig in their hometown of Kaiserslautern on December 30, 2016. As the title of this third live document hints, the band was at that point flying the flag for both parts of the conceptual “Chronicles Of The Immortals” story albums. It’s also worth adding that “Live & Immortal” is the first live document in Vanden Plas’s career so far to be available in full on film (DVD).
Even though they never broke through to the international progressive metal big leagues the way, say, their generational peers Symphony X did, Vanden Plas are a byword for outstanding quality, deeply cherished by their loyal and devoted (if not exactly huge) band of followers. In short, it seems Vanden Plas are stuck with a fatally linked curse: after all those years of activity and a string of exceptionally high-quality releases, they never got the recognition they deserved, and after more than 36 years on the scene they remain, well, ‘gently’ overlooked.
Whichever way you slice it, anyone who knows the band knows full well that Vanden Plas have always worked with an unchanged lineup. Whether we’re talking about the 1994 debut “Colour Temple” or the latest, again excellent album “The Ghost Xperiment – Illumination” (2020 – RockLine review). That’s exactly one of the guarantors of their resilience, their steadfastness and their defiance in the face of what is, in a way, a fateful sentence: being ‘just an eternal part’ of the club scene. Quality is Vanden Plas’s middle name, and the new live document “Live & Immortal” crowns it, serving up more variety than you’d expect given when it was recorded and the setlist of the time.
In a way, Vanden Plas really needed this live release. The repertoire of the first one, “Spirit of Live”, now sounds almost prehistoric, while its successor from 2017 focuses mostly on a one-hour run through the then-current “The Seraphic Clockwork” (2010). Since “Live & Immortal” captures a gig that’s an hour and 40 minutes long, it digs into a much broader cross-section of the band’s discography and brings the balance fans have been craving. As for long-missed favorites, the band threw in a hugely welcome treat with the brilliant ballad Secret Flower Fields from “Beyond Daylight” (2002). There are also three tracks from “Far Of Grace” (1999), starting with Into the Sun, then the dark I Can See, and in the second half of the show Iodic Rain, all of which already appeared on “Spirit Of Live”, but simply have to be in the setlist. Interestingly, “The God Spirit” (1997) got ‘the short end of the stick’ in the repertoire, while the debut “Colour Temple” (1994) is once again represented (only) by its peak, the fantastic How Many Tears. These punchy numbers from the band’s first era perfectly balance out, or lighten the load of, the compositionally more demanding songs in the setlist, which come mainly from both “Chronicles Of The Immortals” albums and from “The Seraphic Clocworks” (2010). The grand finale (the obligatory encore) of this document is embodied by two “Christ 0” (2006) classics, Postcard To God and the album’s title track, which makes sure the show closes on an atmospheric crescendo.
There’s no need to add that the performance of all this material, led by a top-class vocal turn from the band’s driving force, singer Andy Kuntz, comes close to the word ‘flawless’. The working chemistry heated to near-infernal temperatures, the stacking of dramatically bombastic atmospheres, the vivid passages of technically brilliant soloing between Stephan Lill (guitar) and Günter Werno (keyboards), set against the contrasting, dynamic, constantly progressively exploring and ferociously intense rhythmic tandem of Torsten Reichert (bass) and Andreas Lill (drums) — all of it keeps putting Vanden Plas not only in a special place in the world of progressive metal, but also gives the band (at least at home, in Germany) a commanding lead. And when we stretch this quality, the product of the quintet’s remarkable years-long coherence and tightness, into a comparison with similar generational peers across the wider old European continent, Vanden Plas, despite being unjustly overlooked, still sit right at the very top today.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
CD1
1. Intro (Vision 1Ne)
2. Godmaker
3. Into The Sun
4. Frequency
5. Scarlet Flower Fields
6. Holes In The Sky
7. I Can See
8. Diabolica Comedia
9. Stone Roses Edge
CD2
1. How Many Tears
2. The Last Fight
3. Iodic Rain
4. The Final Murder
5. Christ 0
6. Postcard To God
DVD/Blu-ray
1. Intro (Vision 1Ne)
2. Godmaker
3. Into The Sun
4. Frequency
5. Scarlet Flower Fields
6. Holes In The Sky
7. I Can See
8. Diabolica Comedia
9. Stone Roses Edge
10. How Many Tears
11. The Last Fight
12. Iodic Rain
13. The Final Murder
14. Christ 0
15. Postcard To God
Lineup:
Andy Kuntz – vocals
Stephan Lill – guitar
Andreas Lill – drums
Torsten Reichert – bass
Günter Werno – keyboards
