NOTE******This is the Official Masterplan Myspace site!
MASTER NEWS:
Hi everyone,We are still in the writing process and looking foreward for an early 2009 album release and world tour incl. US, Canada, South America and Australia this time !
Many people ask me about a live DVD....it will be also recorded on the next tour in 2009. :))
Baarn FM has chosen I'M GONNA WIN song from MKII album as next weeks HOTSHOT. Baarn FM is a big radio based in The Netherlands.
Meanwhile roland have a guest live apearance in Greece on the 8th of March on the MMD Festival playing a couple of songs with the band HANIBAL as a special guest.
HISTORY:
There have been reports about a number of personnel changes, causing concern among their international fan community that Masterplan mark 2007 may not continue where the exceptional standard of their first two releases had left off. But rest assured - these worries have turned out to be entirely unfounded. Now that the veil of speculation and rumours has been lifted, Masterplan are about to present an album that will elicit unanimous comments from connoisseurs of the scene: absolutely terrific from the first to the final note! Not only have Masterplan effortlessly reconfirmed the compositional class of their two predecessor albums, Masterplan (2003) and Aeronautics (2005), they have even upped the ante. MK II, the third offering by the band surrounding former Helloween axeman Roland Grapow, features twelve haunting tracks that are a credit to the melodic metal genre. The guitarist, composer and producer from Hamburg has turned over a new leaf in his own musical history with his reformed group, coming up with a recording full of breathtaking songs, marked by an absorbing dynamism and brimming with enthusiasm. Although this kind of comment may sound like a contradiction in view of the recent line-up changes: never before have Masterplan sounded as tight and homogeneous as they do on MK II!
Let's briefly dwell on the current line-up: Jørn Lande's place at the Masterplan mic has been taken over by a singer whose voice is perfect for this band: Mike DiMeo, a known quantity since his days with Riot and The Lizards, not only understands Masterplan's special musical flair, incorporating it into his impressive vocal melodies, but he has also left his mark on the new album. It would be impossible to deliver a more convincing debut! The second new addition is Mike Terrana (ex-Rage), who recorded the drum parts for the new Masterplan material at the studio only a few days after drummer Uli Kusch had left the fold. Terrana and Grapow have not only been friends for years, they also have great artistic respect for each other as colleagues, showing on MK II how congruent their artistic visions are. Terrana's drum parts are extremely intense, yet always leave the material enough air to breathe. Next to Grapow and the two new additions, DiMeo and Terrana, bassist Jan S. Eckert and keyboard player Axel Mackenrott, both members of the original line-up, continue to be an integral part of Masterplan, both having contributed compositions to the current album.
MK II sees Masterplan once again succeed in that difficult balancing act of presenting an amazingly broad range of different tracks within a fixed stylistic framework. From fast double bass numbers reminiscent of Grapow’s previous musical career, such as "Warriors Cry" and "Masterplan", through driving mid-tempo tracks such as "Keeps Me Burning", "Lost And Gone" (which will be the first single to be lifted from the album), "Call The Gipsy" or "Take Me Over" to songs with great atmospheres and conceptual depth ("Watching The World", "Trust In You", "Heart Of Darkness"), Masterplan explore the whole range that their genre offers. That this band pairs impressive songwriting qualities with technical skills that are absolutely beyond reproach has been a known fact for a long time. MK II was mixed and mastered at Helsinki's Finnvox Studios by Mikko Karmilla and Mika Jussila, and Grapow produced the twelve new compositions himself.
So what more do the fans want in view of this impressive album? To see the tracks performed live on stage as soon as possible, of course. And they will not be kept waiting for too long: starting at the end of February, Masterplan are scheduled to tour with Saxon, playing most of Europe’s important metal venues for over two and a half months – fifty shows which are bound to leave music fans in many countries awed by this bands. Any bets to the contrary?
