Search - Beautiful Sin :: Unexpected

One hell of an album!

John P. Kelley | San Diego, CA United States | 09/24/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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.)"

Unexpectedly good project

Paul Lawrence | Australia | 02/02/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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."

Beautiful Sin - The Unexpected

Gandhi the Vile | Tulsa, OK | 04/29/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

""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."