While the rumors that Jorn Lande has returned to Roland Grapow's MASTERPLAN are close to be confirmed, the Norse singer is ready to release his seventh full length LP under the title Spirit Black. Jorn seems to be on-fire delivering his old-school breathing Hard Rock creating on average one album per year. Actually, Spirit Black is the successor to the very good long play Lonely Are The Brave that hit the stores a year ago.
If you are into Hard Rock then you should probably know that Jorn possesses an impressive voice that is deeply influenced from star singers like David Coverdale and Dio. But he is not just a very good singer; he has gathered around him some talented musicians creating a 'winning team' when it comes to quality album production. So, Jorn's team has come up with Spirit Black that comprises (as expected) the melodic Hard Rock we love to hear from his voice. The homonymous track opens the album that delivers Hard Rock with a WHITESNAKE hearty guitar rhythm section and the expected Jorn's powerful vocals. The song is a mid tempo Rocker that sounds like it comes from the The Duke album featuring the strong US oriented AOR backbone along with a very good guitar solo. Below  is next bringing along the hearty RAINBOW influences looking more specifically to Blackmore's past work with the electric six string instrument away from the nowadays medieval (and non metal) discographic attempts. Road Of The Cross continues on the same influences-road bringing the massive figure of Dio in mind when Jorn sings No trace of the Holy... under the Eastern guitar melodies that simply make the track a killer one!
Although, the album is very good I really missed the tracks that stand out and make you push the 'play' button additional times. Indeed, I enjoyed every listening session of Spirit Black but I could not but think, that this album was made following the winning recipe keeping an average song duration of four and a half minutes giving the impression that Jorn is playing safe. I would like to have something closer to his epic album Starfire that are more focused to the music and less to the overall Hard Rock feeling. Yes, I still enjoy the WHITESNAKE foundations and stick to the 80s classic Heavy Metal atmosphere but Jorn has raised my expectations so high that it is kind of difficult to meet them with this one. I know that the Jorn will take this one but they have to hold their horses since it's below the artist's well known potentials. For the rest, if you do not know who Jorn then check the MASTERPLAN debut and his first two solo albums and let your ears bleed with this excellent Hard Rock voice.