MK II

I own just a promo copy of "MKII" yet but it´s not a problem to make an opinion about this album. First I must say that Masterplan is not a traditional progressive metal band, I think it´s a typical heavy metal band with a strong tuch to prog metal, but in a fact I must say that is much better than most of the "prog" metal bands on a present scene! I have to remind that new Masterplan album "MK II" offers exactly the music quality that I´ve expected from this top quality metal combo. They offer us strong melodic heavy prog metal songs, with the excellent musicianship, with guitar solos orgies, perfect technical Terrana´s drumming and typical Masterplan keyboard work. New singer DiMeo continues in a vein of J. Lande and I don´t see any problems in his great performance. I´m glad that Masterplan proved again that they are real proffesionals and Mr.Grapow proves that he is a songwriter with big "S". Yes they are group of real metal proffesionals and belongs to the top of the metal genre these days!!! Only 5 stars is possible !

Competent performances on this release by Masterplan; and a few quite catchy tunes as well.

But it's very much a bombastic, epic overkill as well. To me the soundscape here sounds awfully compressed, it's like a wall of sound from start to finish where the details are deafened by noise pollution. Which for me subtracts rather than adding to the musical experience.

Apart from that, this is melodic power metal with some very slight progressive tendencies, with bombastic and grandiose soundscapes and some pretty catchy choruses at times. Too bombastic for me, but many love that sound - and those that do should really check this one out.

|D| Cookie cutter power metal with prog moments.

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.

What most people want to know: - New singer Mike DiMeo / vocals is a notch below Jorne Lande, in fact someone may prefer him as his vocals do not dominate.

A lot better than many power metal releases as the drummer, - Mike Terrana, of Rage varies his drumming style.

However, like Rage, they will still be 2nd tier to heavy weights like Helloween, Gamma Ray and Blind Guardian because of their songwriting.

Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Phoenix Rising 2. Warrior's Cry 3. Lost And Gone 4. Keeps me Burning 5. Take Me Over 6. I'm Gonna Win 7. Watching The World 8. Call The Gypsy 9. Trust In You 10. Masterplan 11. Enemy 12. Heart Of Darkness

Of the songs above, Take, Me Over, I'm Gonna Win and Watching the World are in the same class as those groups mentioned above.

I give it a 4. 3.8 to be exact, because it is much better than good, but not reaching excellent, especially since I seldom given 5 reviews as essential (these are hall of fame recordings deserving this)