MK II

That pretty much sums up the nature of the power metal band Masterplan's most recent album, MK II. My brother bought this album about a year ago or so when he was really into power metal and I've listened to it every so often since. At the time it was a pretty cool album, though even then I sensed its evident cookie cutter quality. This is certainly more well written and slightly less obnoxiously cliche than much of the power metal out there, but all of the tracks follow the same or a very similar formula, that of cliche power metal which standard verse-chorus-solo-etc. sort of structure, with slightly proggy moments, especially the intros to many of the songs.

Most of the cliches of power metal are right here in this album: rhythm guitar doing not much more than power chords and sixteenth or eighth note strumming on the same note per measure or two, overuse of double bass drumming, relatively simple song structure, overly melodic and epic vocal melodies with corny lyrics. Occasionally, mainly in the intros of some tracks, we'd have some nice proggy moments with clean guitar, nice chord changes, and great synth string keyboard work, but these are usually brief and go straight into the cliche power metal sound, with which many of us prog metallers are familiar.

So unless you're already a fan of power metal, this isn't an album you will probably be interested in. The best tracks are Take Me Over, Call the Gypsy, and the album title track, which is probably the main reason anyone would want to buy this album. Otherwise, this album isn't really very noteworthy, and it even isn't too revered in the power metal community anyways. Get this album only if you collect power metal or already like the band's work. Otherwise, there's not much here even an average prog metal fan would be interested in.

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