Masterplan

Time To Be King

Written by: PP on 01/08/2010 22:10:36

Even though power metal bands are a dime a dozen, there are a couple of figures you can always count on to deliver the goods. One of these is Helloween. You might wonder why I bring up Helloween in a review of "Time To Be King" by Masterplan, but it's for two very specific reasons: one, they sound just like Helloween, and two, their guitarist Roland Grapow used to play guitar in Helloween for a while before forming Masterplan together with Uli Kusch (also Helloween). Uli's not in the band anymore, but it's not such a great loss given he played drums, and power metal is all about the colossal soundscape domianted by a vibrato-oriented vocalist.

But Masterplan take it a notch further. They play very ambitious heavy metal-inspired power metal that risks everything on humongous choruses and huge riffs that sound like they're suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. But unlike most such bets in this scene, Masterplan succeed to a great degree in convincing me of their ability to reign above the individual and deliver the goods. Their soundscapes are full of pounding, grandiose power metal that's equally majestic as it is technically proficient. The choruses, oh man, Jørn Lande possesses some of the best pipes I've heard in power metal for a while now. He mostly sticks to the absolute top part of his range, and still manages to put a characteristic strain on his voice, much in the same way as the dude from Accept or the almighty Judas Priest. Listening to a song like "Far From The End Of The World" one can only marvel at his ability to keep it pitch-perfect throughout the song.

Not much more needs to be said about "Time To Be King" in all honesty, because the songs speak for themselves. There aren't any boring, generic, or samey-sounding tracks; only superb vocal harmonies stacked on top of screeching solos and convincing riffs. As for power metal, it doesn't come much better than this, so do check it out if you're at all into the genre, even if your understanding of it is limited to Dragonforce's "Through The Fire And Flames". Time to be king, indeed.

8

Download: Far From The End Of The World, Fiddle Of Time, Lonely Winds Of War
For the fans of: Helloween, Accept, Jorn, Edguy
Listen: Myspace

Release date 24.05.2010
AFM Records

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