Masterplan are premier league Power Metal. There’s no getting around it. They were right from the start. Take a guitarist and drummer from Helloween, a bassist from Iron Saviour, the keyboardist from Children of Bodom and the unmistakably Metal voice of Jorn Lande and it can’t fail. An excellent debut was followed by a second of equal merits and there was no stopping them! …Apart from the excellent Uli Kusch jumping ship – but Mike Terrana stepped in so damage limited…but then Jorn Lande’s exited. A tricky guy to replace. Riot’s Mike DiMeo was called upon and to be fair did a good job with the songs he was given. “Time To Be King” saw Lande back, but to be honest, I thought it had a bit of a disjointed feel about it – like the band were pulling in different directions.
Well now Jorn’s offski again and this time founding member Jan-Soren Eckert has also departed, giving remaining founder Roland Grapow the opportunity to start anew. Keyboardist Axel Mackenrott was on board after their debut so he keeps his place, but the addition of ex-Stratovarius bassist Jari Kainulainen is a hell of a name to grab in Power Metal circles and ex-Cradle Of Filth/Inner Fear drummer Martin Škaroupka knows how to thump the tubs nicely. Vocal duties are handled by current At Vance/Thunderstone/Herman Frank/Sandalinas/Frequency/Epysode vocalist Rick Altzi.
Are there really so few quality Metal singers out there that they have to be in 7 band’s at once? This guy alone has been lead vocalist on 8 different albums for 7 different bands in the last 5 years! Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great singer with an excellent Metal voice, and I don’t blame him for singing on all the releases he is offered – apart doing what he loves, he’s also got to earn a living. But at some point he’s going to sing lines that sound…familiar. Having heard the latest At Vance, Herman Frank, Thunderstone and Sandalinas albums, unfortunately this is the problem that struck me immediately about this new Masterplan album. All singers (and Rick Altzi is no different) have a style and a trait to their voice that makes them who they are. It has to shine through in whatever band they record for, or they would come across as trying to be someone else.
If the vocals sound familiar to their singer’s other bands then maybe it’s not the fault of Masterplan…actually, that’s bollocks! Of course it’s Masterplan’s fault! They took the easy option of getting in someone who’s in 6 other bands rather than being brave, holding auditions and possibly getting in an unknown. I’m the first to admit that if this was the only album, or even the second I’d heard sporting the talents of Mr. Altzi, then of course, it’s great. He does a sterling job – just what he was hired for. And he was great on the other 5 albums I’ve heard him sing on too… But nothing vocal-wise on this Masterplan album really grabbed my attention, quite the opposite, because I felt that I’d heard the vocals before. This convinced me that I’d heard songs just like this by another band before! For instance, ‘Keep Your Dream Alive’ is a good, catchy melodic track, but it sounds like it could be an unreleased track from the last Sandalinas album. Equally, the slightly proggier feel of ‘No Escape’ leaves me recalling the last At Vance release. ‘Return From Avalon’ sounds like Thunderstone etc etc. The down-tuned guitar of Grapow is about all that particularly differs about them really, and because of Grapow, thankfully, tracks like ‘The Game’ ‘Pray On My Soul’ and ‘Black Night of Magic’ sound like classic Masterplan and are the best tracks on the album. So yes, Masterplan do have their own strong song-writing identity, I just think it struggles to shine through when the band is so vocally driven. There’s always something in every track that makes me think I’m listening to another band and not Masterplan.
So, to sum up, if this is indeed the first or second CD that you have heard Rick Altzi sing on, it’s at least an 8/10, but I’m disappointed that Masterplan took the easy option and I feel it’s backfired a little. I can’t mark it too much lower though because from a song-writing and performance point of view, this will probably be viewed as one of the top Power Metal releases of this year – it IS Masterplan after all.
(7/10 Andy Barker)
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