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Masterplan > Time to Be King > 2010, 12" vinyl, AFM Records > Reviews
Masterplan - Time to Be King

Jorn Lande is back! - 80%

TrooperOfSteel, May 18th, 2011

Masterplan fans around the world rejoice, for the prodigal son himself has returned to the flock. That’s right, I speak of talented journeyman vocalist Jorn Lande and his return to the band since leaving in 2006. Not only that, but Masterplan also have a new CD, their 4th, entitled ‘Time to be King’.

No one could forget when Masterplan’s debut album first thundered through our speakers. It was a grand piece of work, forging together melodic metal and power metal with effortless ease. How could it not be anything but short of fantastic when ex-Helloween guitarist Roland Grapow left searing scorchmarks with his axe-playing and Mr. Lande’s soaring vocals piercing the atmosphere with power and emotion. I would compare Masterplan’s debut with the magnitude of greatness that came from the first Demons & Wizards CD a few years earlier. That album too, took us all by surprise.

Let’s fast forward a few years, past the underachieving (but still decent) ‘Aeronautics’ and the very solid ‘MK II’, featuring ex-Riot vocalist Mike DiMeo on vocal duty. Masterplan’s popularity may have slipped a little since their debut and the wash-up of Lande’s departure; but now that he’s back, fans are hoping that a return to glory can be achieved with the latest CD ‘Time to be King’.

There is a mixed bag of tracks to be heard on the new album, including a few swift paced tracks while the majority are emotional mid-paced tracks, and lastly a few semi-ballads for equal measure. This time round, however, I’d say the forging between power metal and melodic metal is about 60/40 in melodic metal’s favour. With that being said, the heaviness and melody we’ve come to know and love still remains.

Sounding refreshed and energized, the song-writing on ‘Time to be King’ is far more creative and epic in feel than the previous two albums, which is a definite plus. Without a shred of doubt, Jorn Lande plays a massive and crucial part on the release and his presence alone on this CD is enough itself to be a success. As expected, Lande’s vocals are again brilliant (are they ever not?), with gallons of emotion poured into each and every track. The keyboards (played by Axel Mackenrott) have taken on a larger role on this release than previous, adding further depth, melody and emotion to go along with the solid rhythm section and the leading guitar chords and riffs from Roland Grapow.

The two semi-ballads on the disc include “Under the Moon” and “The Dark Road”, and both tracks are exceptional and easily two of the best tracks on the album. The CD begins strongly with the speedy opening track “Fiddle of Time”. With great use of the keys, the song pounds away in true Masterplan style, with Jorn at the top of his game. A top solo from Grapow seals the track as a winner and a highlight on the album. The disc continues to chug along with more great songs including the swift title track “Time to be King”, the soaring and melodic “Far From the End of the World”, the emotional and upbeat “The Sun is in Your Hands”, the mid-paced foot-taper “Blow Your Winds” and the lyrically powerful “Lonely Winds of War”.

Masterplan never have had what we would consider a bad release, and ‘Time to be King’ continues that run. With a core sound that has stayed relatively true to the original first CD, this new release retains that core sound, while also moving with the times of melodic metal trends. The end result is an album that actually has more depth, emotion and charisma than the debut. Whether or not ‘Time to be King’ has surpassed it will come down to personal opinion.

Masterplan have come a long way since its inception as originally just a side project. Created by Roland Grapow and now ex-drummer Uli Kursch when they were a part of Helloween, both members were eventually fired from the band and all of a sudden Masterplan had become a fully fledged metal band. Four releases later and Masterplan is one of the most popular melodic power metal bands around, mostly due to its “all-star” line up, which from 2007 now includes the master behind the drum kit, Mike Terrana (Savage Circus, Axel Rudi Pell, Rage).

In short, ‘Time to be King’ is a great melodic/power metal release and I would consider it to be Masterplan’s best effort since their debut CD. The end result is a disc that has all the hallmarks to be a success and with Jorn Lande returning to the band, so should a lot of the fans that may have been waning or just sitting on the fence over the last few years. ‘Time to be King’ is highly recommended to both power metal fans and melodic metal fans alike.

Also worth mentioning is that Jorn Lande has just finished recording a tribute album to the late and great Ronnie James Dio, simply titled ‘Dio’, and covers songs Ronnie has done over his 35+ year career. The new track which Jorn has written and is the opening track on the CD is called “Song for Ronnie James” and can be seen on youtube.com.

Originally reviewed for www.themetalforge.com

The word is spread, the crown is in their hands - 90%

MeatWolf, July 10th, 2010

“Jorn Lande is back.” April 2009 came with these shocking news for every Masterplan fan, shocking because nothing was confirmed back then. But metal gods favoured Masterplan faithful followers and Mr. Lande took his place behind the vocal rack once again. Has he made sort of agreement with Roland Grapow about that there’s no need to turn the band into some kind of AOR project? Has he agreed that he’d rather do whatever he wants in his solo project than here, while this band needs a different approach? We don’t know. But does it really matter? We can just enjoy this godly voice here once again.

Despite Masterplan being not Jorn’s own project speaking of songwriting (it all even started with a quite different lineup which in particular included Russell Allen on vocals), it’s hard to overrate his contribution to the band. MKII showed that yes, the task of replacement can be accomplished. But — we all realize, what’s it about. The more so because Jorn made an excellent job tormenting fans’ souls with his appearances, while not in the band, in particular working with Tobias Sammet in his Avantasia, where he’s granted the leading role among the invited singers on the third album in a row. While on the latest double release his parts are not something that spectacular, Promised Land (written during The Scarecrow sessions), The Scarecrow itself, Devil In The Belfry and especially Another Angel Down clearly pointed at the terrible loss for Masterplan. Solo albums were not really significant because of greater stylistic “distance”, besides, they are of some interest to much more narrow audience than Masterplan and Avantasia are.

Before all the fuzzbuzz Roland scheduled the release for spring 2009, but eventually it took one more year to get everything done. So much the better, perhaps he had to re-make most of the songs because of all these events. The first signs of what’s to come appeared on Far From The End Of The World single released in April 2010 (and yes, it’s a single, there’s no bonus or non-album content here like it was on three previous EPs). It is quite obvious which songs appear on Masterplan’s pre-album releases — catchiest and the most impressive. The temptation to suppose the whole album will be done like this was too strong this time. As before, that could bring just delusions of the future, because the album is very diverse and multi-faceted, with various moods and motives that refer to all three previous releases, thus it’s not an integral creation like Masterplan, MKII and especially Aeronautics were. But if not to call it evolution, by all means it’s more than just a solid follow-up to the band’s past works.

Every Masterplan album was composed of highlights at least by half, the same can be said about this one, but what is more important is that there are no bleak songs like Call The Gypsy, Watching The World or Masterplan. MKII drawbacks were not about good part being not good enough. Those were bloody brilliant, almost perfect. The problem was about that the rest was more than dull and outright weakness. Partly because of the songwriting style itself, partly because there was no factor dragging everything to the heights no-matter-what; it’s present here and that is, of course, Jorn’s voice.

Sometimes a lack of instrumental and melodic richness, which are both present at full in Far From The End Of The World, can be observed. Tripled closing chorus with main theme manifesting itself in its full power is something like a furious solar wind giving rise to a aurora borealis of unspeakable beauty. Fragments of the same intensiive approach are uncovered with the beginning of The Dark Road or after the intro of Blue Europa. The band never strived for making whole album of such soundscapes but hardly they were ever closer to that: combination of heaviness and scale of MKII (which become apparent in such compositions as solemnly arranged Time To Be King, with its church bells samples, The Black One, full of refined keyboard background and vigorous aura — Terrana’s drums during certain parts of the song just blast the speakers, — dark and hard-rockish The Sun Is In Your Hands — all of them put the screws out of the listeners) with vividness and elegant force of Masterplan (these traits step in with the first tunes of fast-paced Fiddle Of Time, crushing majesty and melodic saturation of Far From The End Of The World and breathtaking vocal performance of Lonely Winds Of War, sweeping over with emotional waves — thanks to Jorn’s efforts, this song turned from “yet another classical variation” to “yet another monsterkiller”) and with “light” melancholy and spleen of Aeronautics (which one can feel in most revealing Blue Europa, Blow Your Winds, The Dark Road and Under The Moon, all resembling band’s second effort ) in perfectly adjusted proportions ensures the outcoming assortment to be nothing but smashing.

There is no doubt about that Masterplan is one of the best bands in the genre speaking of keyboard utilization, which still remains strictly in the framework of power metal, without any significant nods to symphonic, electronic or neoclassical style. Shades of every of these are surely present here and there, but never as a full influence. Axel Mackenrott weaves strong, multistage and multilayered passages, which rarely rush into the front plane, just in a shape of some stunningly catchy tune. His contribution is not only very important for the whole picture, because the synths take one of the leading roles in moulding moods and melodic basis, but is also extremely versatile: from soft tinkling introduced in The Sun Is In Your Hands to ocean keywaves in Far From The End Of The World Axel creates various half-tints, paints the music with different colours and makes his parts sound either as structural element or as just an adornment, an addition to the main construction with ease.

Riddance from straightforwardness and viscosity of MKII, which were sometimes too oppressive, is one of the unquestionable achievements. Mr. Grapow almost made Mr. Terrana to play “a-la Kusch”: there always was a lot of power in Mike’s drumming techniques, but he lacked that smartness and “nonlinearity” that was represented by Uli. He’s doing better this time, at least one can hope to hear some development of the starting drum pattern during every song.

Smoothness and “fluidity” inherent in early works were also brought back; those efforts are like fine parchment scriptures, while the third album, which was given in to constraint much, resembled more of bold runes carved in stone. Masterplan need more of the first manner, and return of action and rhythmic lightness on Time To Be King is welcomed.

Roland Grapow is one of those guitar players which prefer to go nuts in his music, BUT! Always in a civilized and intelligent way. Therefore one can never spot neoclassical two minutes long shredding, instrumental things like Labyrinth Of Madness off Rhapsody Of Fire The Frozen Tears Of Angels or The Crying Kitten off Bloodbound’s Tabula Rasa or even something close to Grapow’s own solo works in Masterplan’s albums. Roland even usually collect his thoughts and come with one or two solos per album that are integral parts of the songs they’re put in. As for the rest, this element is totally unpredictable — and that adds certain zest. Nino Laurene and his works with Thunderstone are one of the most similar examples.

Time To Be King is no “smashing elegance” embodiment, which was omnipresent at the single, neither it is a direct heritage of any particular previous CD. But it’s incredibly good, although doesn’t strike like a bolt from the blue at first play. Jorn’s merits in this should be mentioned again and again, without him certain elements would have “sagged” for sure, some songs wouldn’t have shone with brightness of a thousand suns and many striking vocal passages performed by another vocalist could have been such just in theory.
Masterplan managed to get back to the state they should be in, and Time To Be King is an obvious disproof of “You can't step into the same river twice” saying. The album gives a feeling of long-expected return of an old friend, whom you glad to meet no matter who he is now. No sense of filling ecstasy, just slight and sincere smile of recognition.

A tad short of royalty. - 73%

hells_unicorn, June 5th, 2010

Masterplan have been seen as the principle culprits in ushering in the groovier, lighter, more AOR and prog. oriented trend that has been going on in power metal circles for the past several years. Though there is something to be said for the band being a bit more metallic and hard edged than other acts that have followed their lead such as Ride The Sky, Powerworld and the newer versions of Avantasia and Edguy, they’ve had a tendency of exposing a bit too much of their mainstream hard rock side, at the expense of the credibility that they would otherwise bring, as is the case with their earlier single releases. That propensity has managed to seep its way into much of their songwriting on this, their latest offering in “Time To Be King”.

The re-entry of Jorn Lande is a welcome one, as his unique blend of gravely David Coverdale meets Ian Gillian shrieks are more indicative of Masterplan’s sound than Mike Demio’s smoother voice, though the latter did work well for his brief tenure with the band. Unfortunately, a lot of the heavier metallic aggression, spearheaded by Roland’s blistering riffs and thudding grooves have all but left the band with its now departed replacement front man. In its place is a fairly mechanical, very repetitive, and often not very enticing set of slower and faster semi-riffs that have been pushed to the background behind Jorn’s vocals and a wide array of studio gimmicks and keyboard sounds.

When not bogged down in the drudgery of mid-paced, groovy rock and sappy ballads, things are not quite as drab as they could be, but still manage to be pretty predictable. Stronger metallic bruisers with a catchy edge such as “Fiddle Of Time” and “Time To Be King” generally lack the epic exploratory nature of a “Spirit Never Die”, or the catchy sing-along value of “Kind Hearted Light” or “Crimson Rider”, but manage to at least get the job done. But when things slow down and the atmosphere is expected to play a larger role, things get pretty dry, literally coming up short of what Ride The Sky would have on the weaker tracks on “New Protection”. Whether it’s a groovy half ballad with fragmented guitar work like “Blow Your Winds”, or all out power ballads like “Under The Moon”, unless you’re in love with Jorn’s voice there isn’t much to grab onto here that wasn’t done 3 times as well on the debut.

Naturally there is still some good stuff to hear on amidst the large dose of fluff and filler. “Blue Europa” and the album’s single “Far From The End Of The World” do an ample job at recapturing aspects of the freer, faster sound of this outfit’s roots, and Roland does get across with a bit more authority both in his riffs and his solo activity. The semi-acoustic, heavily atmospheric ballad “Lonely Winds Of War” also has a good share of powerful points and comes off like a dark, dreary, politically conscious and cynical answer to Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home”. It’s all sort of a mixed bag, and generally that isn’t what you get out of this band. It isn’t something that I’d call worthy of passing up completely, but waiting until the price drops on this one would be advised.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on June 5, 2010.

Sorry to cock block your coronation, but... - 70%

autothrall, June 3rd, 2010

After taking a hiatus from the band and being temporarily replaced by Mike DiMeo of the legendary Riot, Jørn Lande returns to his German super group Masterplan and all seems to be well. The rest of the usual suspects are present: Roland Grapow (ex-Helloween), Axel Mackenrott (Beautiful Sin, live with Gamma Ray), Jan-Sören Eckert (ex-Running Wild, Iron Savior), and Mike Terrana (of at least 438 bands including Rage, Savage Circus, Axel Rudi Pell, Squealer, etc) and the lot have once more set about to prove themselves in a world already armed to the teeth with talents of this genre, many of which the Masterplan members had once partaken of.

How you view Time to Be King is really going to depend on how much you love Lande's vocals, whether they be in Ark, Allen/Lande, Jørn, or his many other past and present projects. His sinewy presence, a mixture of Gillan, Coverdale and Dio is humbling and charismatic, ever the stark contrast to the more shrieking power metal vocalists of our times, and yet still capable of a wide range of emotional impact. The rest of the band, as talented as they all are, don't exactly distinguish themselves through any unique traits, so he's truly the focal point of this experience as he is on almost any other record he has participated (save possibly Ark). For a top shelf, professional power/progressive metal act like Masterplan, he is the perfect fitting component to elevate their writing just above the wide swath of mediocrity that many modern bands of this nature unknowingly play themselves into.

It's your stock modern power, with a heavy use of Mackenrott's keys to provide both sweeping atmospheres and gentler, 'classy' piano lines that serve to balance off the power chords. Though I have no doubt Grapow was crucial to the composition of these tracks, I feel like he is largely wasted here. Very few of the riffs induce anything beyond solidarity, their shifting patterns used against the keyboards to create almost all of the record's mood changes, which are few and subtle at best. The solos also suffer from a feel of useless. They exist. The man can play. They are not well written so much as placeholders. Rarely do the songs feel generic, but so too do they rarely feel more than a passing curiosity, without any real displays of elegance that resonate through the memory. A high level of production standards and an enormously seasoned rhythm section can only get you so far, without the sinking hooks there is naught but fire and flash, a puff of smoke and a quick exit from the stage for the magician.

However, if you simply want to rock to something brainier than the average sludge, grunge and retro chord wielders of the day, you will certainly find yourself banging along to "The Black One", the snaking, nu-groove anchored "Blow Your Winds" and "The Sun In Your Hands", all dowsed in scintillating synthesizers and bombastic but forgettable guitar rhythms. "Under the Moon" stood out as the true pinnacle of this record, an atmospheric mood piece with truly benefits from Mackenrott's orchestration and a slow elevation towards climax, which is then broken into a choppy prog metal groove. If you fancy Lande's solo work, this is definitely one to listen for. "Far from the End of the World" is also a strong point, with some flighty melodic guitars and a pumping bass that transfix the ears as Lande balances out the eminent keyboard work.

A line-up like this is rarely capable of giving anything less than a professional effort, and thus Time to be King succeeds solely on its star power and vocal performance, with a few tracks in which the music really backs the hype. The material is fully consistent with the previous efforts like Aeronautics, but I feel like each of them had better songs than this one. If you're a fan of Masterplan, At Vance, Domain, Jørn, Edguy and Avantasia, then you will likely devour this too, though for how long I cannot say...

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com