Customer Reviews

Unexpected

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4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm very surprised that I am the first to review this disc. I know it's a small release, but man is it good. I would have to describe them as a cross between Doro/Warlock and Masterplan. Not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but this chick can rock, and so can the band!

For those who don't know, the guitarist (Jorn Viggo Lofstad) and bass player (Steinar Krokmo) are from the Norwegian progressive metal band Pagan's Mind. (I don't recall Amazon mentioning that.) They are both extremely talented musicians, and they definitely show it here, although this is straight forward metal, and not very progressive.

Some on-line reviewers have compared this release to one of Uli's Helloween albums, and I think that it's a fair comparision. However, I have to say that I never enjoyed any of Helloween's work this much. A large part of that is due to the singer, Magali Luyten. I am really impressed with her voice on most of the songs. It's nice to see a female singer that can actually sing with power for a change! (I love groups like After Forever and Within Temptation, but they lack the power that Magali has.)

My general rule of thumb is that if I hear 3 or more good songs, from an album, I'll pick it up. This disc has 11 tracks. I'm not going to review them all, but I will say that the first 3 tracks alone justified the price of the disc for me! IMHO, there are 5 outstanding tunes, 3 damn good ones, and 3 I don't care for. Of course your mileage may vary!

Just a tip, since Amazon does not have sound clips of this, try checking them out on www.pandora.com. It's a free streaming radio service where you create the station by listing artists and/or songs you like. They have over half the album in rotation there, and I heard most of it over the course of 2 days. (They also have a link back here to Amazon to buy the disc if you agree with me.)

"The Unexpected" is the first release (2006) from Uli Kusch's (ex-Helloween, Masterplan) female-fronted metal band, Beautiful Sin. Singer Magali Luyten's vocals are in a lower register than most singers in this type of band, and slightly raspy.

This album is heavily keyboard- and synth-driven. All of the musicians in this band are excellent. Most of the songs are more or less mid-tempo, however, and can at times run together.

The song "Pechvogel" is a minor disaster. "Lost" is derivative of the Helloween song "The Departed". Otherwise, this album doesn't have any other egregious faults, and there are a number of songs on here that are quite good.

This is, on the whole, a solid album. With the addition of second guitarist Carl Johann Grimmark (Narnia, Saviour Machine), Beautiful Sin should only improve.

Beautiful Sin's beginnings can be traced back to 2002 when German drummer Uli Kusch, formerly of the 80s power metal bands Helloween and Gamma Ray, met Belgian singer Magali Luyten. Kusch wanted to record an album with Luyten's band, and agreed to a demo. Sadly, the demo was never released and Kusch and Luyten parted ways.

That is, until the autumn of 2004. Kusch, now part of the band Masterplan, considered starting a new project in which he would write all of the music himself. He began speaking to Luyten again. Two years later, they released The Unexpected under the band name Beautiful Sin.

Even though this album was meant to be a departure for Kusch, it is, in many ways, much like his previous projects. The music is power metal, strongly driven by keyboards,synth (specifically "Brace for Impact"), and an obvious link to the sound of Helloween. This link makes the overall feel of The Unexpected somewhat, well, expected. For example, the song "Lost" is an original version of "The Departed (Sun is Going Down)" from Helloween's "The Dark Ride" album, and the connection between the two songs is fairly obvious.

The band's overall sound will appeal to fans of melodic power metal, synth-heavy metal, and fans of Helloween and Gamma Ray who wouldn't mind having a woman in the driver's seat. As a fan of Helloween, and of 80s rock and metal, I personally loved it. I thought the album's direction was fresh and clean and took the opportunity to exhibit Luyten's talent. Even though I'm not a fan of growling in music, this album had a minimal amount of it and the rest of the sound was so wonderful that I had no trouble overlooking the growling. It can get somewhat overpowering on "Lost" and "The Spark of Ignition," but that's the only issue I have with it.

But what really makes this album stand apart from Kusch's other projects, and from other power metal albums, are the phenomenal vocal abilities of Magali Luyten, specifically on "I'm Real" and "Metalwaves." I listen to a great deal of female-fronted metal (symphonic, operatic, and non) and I think that of all the female metalers out there, Luyten is the most underrated. She has pure, raw talent and a unique voice. Probably the best way to describe it is Janis Joplin-esque. Luyten has a wide range, powerful delivery, and an edge that brings the listener into the heart and soul of the album. After I heard her voice, I started snatching up everything I could find with Luyten attached. So far, I think this is her best project yet.

The only real drawback to this album is the lack of a tour to promote it and the lack of information about potential follow-ups. I can't wait to hear more from this fantastic band, and I eagerly look forward to more music from Beautiful Sin.

Beautiful Sin is the new project of Germany's drum god Uli Kusch (ex-Helloween, Masterplan). Kusch must have wanted to find other ways to express himself, as he teamed up with Axel Mackenrott on keys from Masterplan, Pagan's Mind members Steinar Krokmo and Jorn Viggo Lofstad on bass and guitars respectively, and last but not least the amazing female vocalist Magali Luyten. Actually Luyten and Kusch have known each other for quite some time, since Kusch had primarily produced a demo for Luyten's previous band, which unfortunately never took off the ground. So, when the idea of forming Beautiful Sin came to mind, Kusch's first choice for vocalist was Magali Luyten.

Even though this album is meant to be a departure from the previous efforts of Uli Kusch, in many ways, it's just a more keyboard-driven version of his recent output with Masterplan. Mackenrott's synths are all over the place, and aside from the few songs where he delves into deep experiments, the music could be described as a melodic metal release with some serious hard rock leanings, plus modern production values to boot. Also, I was reminded of Jorn Lande's solo albums quite a bit in some ways, as Jorn Viggo Lofstad, the guitarist of Beautiful Sin, is also an integral part of his albums. And it's a known fact that Lande has always been a huge hard rock fan, therefore often releasing albums in this vein. The band start the album with the ambitious "Lost", the definitive Beautiful Sin song. It is highlighted by great keyboards, melodic female vocals (with the occasional male back-ups) and powerful bass and guitars. However, "This Is Not the Original Dream" is a better cut to fully appreciate Luyten's soaring vocals, and the guitar solo by Loftstad is stunning to say the least. Uli Kusch's drumming skills are still intact, as he opts for great rhythmic variations and top-notch double bass as well.

Most of the songs on the album are quite mid-tempo, picking up crunch and heavier parts only during the apex of the piece or the occasional choruses. "Take Me Home" is one of these songs. After delicate keyboards, the music is graced by thundering bass and rhythm guitars as well as a cool multi-part vocal harmony. "I'm Real" is based on pretty much the same formula, except that the drumming by Kusch is the highlight this time around. Speaking of Kusch, even though this is primarily his project, the number of songs where he attempts to put his skills on display are next to none, which makes me admire him all the more. The heaviest songs have got to be "Give Up Once For All" because of Luyten's aggressive vocals (a bit like Kimberly Goss perhaps); "Pechvogel" where the heavy-as-hell intro is perfectly contrasted by a mellow and slightly electronic key patch; the melodic piece "The Spark of Ignition", marked by varied time signatures and impressive harmonies; and the slowed-down power metal "Metalwaves", which in fact isn't as good a song as the others, but it's got a cool energy to it.

There are also two instrumentals on the album of which "Brace for Impact" is the more adventurous number. It is rather modern-sounding because of its very electronic synth sequences, sweeping bass leads, heavy guitars, and shredding synth lead which still focuses on melody rather than virtuosity. The title track, on the other hand, is just a neat and melodic piece that closes the album on a peaceful note. This album is recommended to fans of melodic metal that also enjoy quality hard rock, as well as to listeners of each member's other bands.

not a release likely to get a swathe of press this one... which is a pity given the overall quality of the final product. But when your main claim to press coverage is that your main man is one of the driving forces of Masterplan and is in that position due to doing revolving drumming duties in Helloween - well it's a pretty tenuous link isn't it...

But as I said above - the small amount of press this album scored is a shame as it's overall pretty good stuff. Uli Kursch wrote the lions share of this album, which also features Steinar Krokmo on bass, Jorn Viggo Lofstad on guitar, Axel Mackenrott on keyboards and the vocal talents of on Magali Luyten.

The story is that Magali + Uli did some demos together in 2002 but an album didn't come about until 2006. And to help you decide whether to purchase this or not a few points would be;

Firstly this is Euro metal. It's not really in the melodic metal vein - the music here is less communicative than that. It's more outright metal with fat sounding riffs that chug along heavily but the songs don't approach the double time style metal. Which is good as playing every song at double time deprives the albums of gravity.

Secondly the vox of Miss Luyten: these are a mile away from the operatic stuff of Tarja Turunen or Sharon Den Adel. They are sung in a mid range register - smoother than say, Doro. And they do suit the music, being well up in the mix to not be drowned out by the riffs or the drumming.

Third point would be that there are a couple of instrumentals here. Not everyones cup of tea but they do break things up a bit and add to the feel of the project. In fact though this is pretty obviously one of the numerous studio only project bands flooding out of Europe (circa '06) you don't look down on this so much for being not a real band, there is some indefinable feel to it.

As for my personal favourites here - well Lost opens things up pretty darn well as an outright rocker, I'm Real is in posession of a cool vocal melody and The Spark of Ignition would be a good tune to listen to if you can as it's fairly indicative musically as to what your going to get. The only track that really fails is Pechvagel (Unlucky Fellow), mainly due to insensible lyrics. The sort of bonus tune on the end (it starts at 5.00 into the last track), we it's surely the product of either too much or not enough drugs, but I won't say it doesn't work.

Having not followed Uli Kusch's career in his day band of Masterplan I went out on a limb to pick this up solely on the strenght of an interview with him in Power Play magazine and their review of the album. And it was one of those times you take a gamble and it really pays off and opens up new music to you. I certainly hope it does the same for you if you also take a chance on it.

While in the process of departing from the metal band "Masterplan" in 2006, drummer extraordinaire Uli Kusch had already put together a new recording line-up for his up coming release "Beautiful Sin-the unexpected". For a project that was not to stand too far apart from "Masterplan" musically, one could in retrospect claim that Uli assembled his line up wisely.

The line up features beyond Uli, former "Masterplan" band-mate Axel Mackenrott on keyboards plus members of Jorn Lande's solo band, guitarist Viggo Lofstad and bassist Steinar Krokmo. The line up is completed by Belgian female singer Magali Lyuten; although a newcomer at the time, Lyuten is indeed the focal point of "Beautiful sin', with a powerful-mid to bass singing voice that provides the depth to support the melodic/progressive song-writing on "The unexpected".

For that matter the musical approach on "beautiful sin" is almost identical to "Masterplan" in fact one could easily see songs like "I'm real", "Take me home" and "The original dream" be a part of "Masterplan"s repertoire. Although the quality of "Beautiful Sin" as a band and album would come close to the standards of "Masterplan", their debut "The unexpected" stands as their only release to date. For fans of Jorn, "Pagan's mind" and "Masterplan", "Beautiful sin" is more of the same great sound.

Let me start by saying that I would have given this 3 1/2 stars but Amazon won't allow me to do that. This is a good debut disc from Masterplan, ex-Gamma Ray and ex-Helloween drummer, Uli Kusch. It is fronted by a female singer (Megali Luyten), which I don't usually like, but unlike most female lead vocalists she doesn't try to overpower the song with vocal operatics. The music is in the vein of Masterplan, so the music doesn't stray far from what Uli knows and does best.

The CD starts out with a song called Lost which is supposedly an original version of Helloween's "The Departed" from "The Dark Ride" CD released in 2000. For me this was a huge disappointment and seemed like a complete lack of originality. The music is the exact same as "The Departed" but the lyrics are completely different. Trust me, "The Departed" is way better than this version of the song. If you are going to do a side project then why rehash old material? It would have been one thing to do a cover of "The Departed", but this seems like they were out of ideas for the CD. For this reason alone, I docked the CD a whole star.

Other than the first song the CD seems to be comprised of original material. There are lots of uptempo, melodic metal songs on this CD which tend to be very catchy. I have only listened to the CD three times, but I don't find myself skipping certain songs like I do on most CDs. The lead singer does a good job vocally, though she does have an European accent that does come through on some of the songs.

Overall, this CD was worth purchasing and I look for to future releases from Beautiful Sin.