Jorn Lande - Spirit Black

Jorn is suffering from Black Label Society syndrome. Jorn, much like BLS, churns out album after album, but the quality lacks from a fast pace. I admit to being a Jorn fanboy, but I wish that he would take his time and put out something steller for once, instead of average. By the way, Lonely are the Brave only had 9 tracks on it! In my opinion, if a band isn't at least recording 11 quality tracks, then they're rushing the process too much.

~Brian~

What's the album length? These days that's what I'm looking for. Albums should be at least 45-50 min in length. Jorn's type of tunes though I'm guessing it is a short album.
 
Albums in the glory days sometimes barely hit 30 minutes (Diver Down, Hell Awaits, etc)...I don't care about album length or if its 9 or 11 tracks. I'm kinda glad bands are going back to 9-10 song albums. That trend in the 90s of putting every song you recorded on your album and ending up with 80 minutes and 18 songs got old. Many times, it became a chore to get through. Give me between 30-45 minutes of good stuff and I'm happy...unless you're a Prog Metal band...then I want 2 CD's loaded down w/ 12-minute songs. LOL!

For me, Allen/Lande is my favorite thing from Jorn, followed by his solo efforts and Masterplan...
 
Albums in the glory days sometimes barely hit 30 minutes (Diver Down, Hell Awaits, etc)...I don't care about album length or if its 9 or 11 tracks. I'm kinda glad bands are going back to 9-10 song albums. That trend in the 90s of putting every song you recorded on your album and ending up with 80 minutes and 18 songs got old.

In the glory days, artists came out with albums every year. Overall output was greater than it is today, even with 70 minute albums being the norm.

Heck, in the 60s, they'd come out with albums every 3-4 months! The Beatles were only around for six years but put out 10 or so albums of new material. The Monkees were around from only 1966-1970, they put out 9 albums.

Today, the Beatles would have had 2-3 albums before they'd broken up.

And here's another rant: concert times. Concert times got longer, from 30 minutes in the 60s, to an average of 2-2.5 hours in the late 80s. Some bands would have marathons of 3-4 hours. If you can keep a metal band on stage for more than 90 minutes these days, you got a bargain. People just didn't complain about set lists back in the 80s because chances are, you heard what you wanted to hear somewhere in there. Now, even a band with only 4 albums will completely skip 1 or 2 of them due to time constraints.
 
And here's another rant: concert times. Concert times got longer, from 30 minutes in the 60s, to an average of 2-2.5 hours in the late 80s. Some bands would have marathons of 3-4 hours. If you can keep a metal band on stage for more than 90 minutes these days, you got a bargain. People just didn't complain about set lists back in the 80s because chances are, you heard what you wanted to hear somewhere in there. Now, even a band with only 4 albums will completely skip 1 or 2 of them due to time constraints.

I agree. I can't stand when I see a headliner only play like an hour and 15 minutes. Especially bands like Edguy, who have nine albums, most of which are loaded with great material, but they play like 11 or 12 songs in a headlining show anymore. WASP are another big culprit of this, and they have even more material. It's ridiculous for some of these club shows or whatnot, to stand through 2-4 opening bands, most of which suck, then see the band you came to see only play for an hour and 15 minutes.
It annoys me that some bands seem to only play an arbitrary amount of songs, no matter how long they are. Take a band like Nocturnal Rites or Firewind. Their songs average around 4-minutes even. So to think of a headlining set as just 14 songs is pretty ridiculous. Bands like that should be playing 20-24 songs each show. The fans certainly wouldn't complain.
Granted, there are bands who can get away with less songs, like Symphony X. I've seen them a few times and they only played 11 or 12 songs, but the show was still close to an hour and 45 minutes, because their songs average 6 to 8 minutes most of the time.
 
It's ridiculous for some of these club shows or whatnot, to stand through 2-4 opening bands, most of which suck, then see the band you came to see only play for an hour and 15 minutes.

I'm guessing that labels make these tours cram as many bands on the bill as possible to make the tours worth their while.

~Brian~
 
I like it when there's no more than 3 bands on a bill...any more than that and it's just overkill, IMO. The Testament/Unearth/Lazarus A.D. show was the perfect length and at $25 it was a bargain!
 
My copy is on the way. I bought it blindly (not my usual move these days), but Jorn hadn't put a bad album out yet, so I have faith enough on this one.

P.S My copy arrived today, the album is very Jorn, meaning that if you like his work you'll like this one too. So far 'Burn My Flame' it's the favorite of the album.
 
Especially bands like Edguy, who have nine albums, most of which are loaded with great material, but they play like 11 or 12 songs in a headlining show anymore.

And with Edguy, you have to figure 10-15 minutes of the set time for Tobias to fool around. Not that I don't enjoy it, he's a funny guy.

Then you've got drum solos. How the heck do you put a drum solo into a 90 minute set?

It's starting to become a problem though, for some bands with a long list of essential songs to play, like Stratovarius. If Strato plays only 90 minutes, then that means they can play 80% of the Live Visions album plus 20% new material. And nothing between Destiny and Elements. Contrast that to Journey, who have 12 songs they absolutely must play every night, but if they are the headliner they'll give you 25 songs or so.
 
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Jorn's new CD Spirit Black is released in Europe today by Frontiers Records. Domestic release date for the USA has been set on July 14.

1 min samples of each track are available *here*

An astounding surprise on the CD is definitely the cover of Tarja Turunen's I Walk Alone from her My Winter Storm -CD (2007). Jorn has got all the goodies to deliver to that song with a personal touch. Great pick for a cover!

Reviews:
http://www.revelationz.net/index.asp?ID=2907
Metal-Temple.com

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MUST HAVE THIS! I love Jorn and I loveeeeeee that song! Awesome! :worship:
 
Yes, Jorn is in a formula rut, but his efforts are still fun for me to listen to.

Agreed completely. You know exactly what you are getting when you buy a new Jorn record! I'm very curious to hear the new Masterplan, and hear Jorn collaborating with a different crew for a change. Maybe get a bit of a fresh sound out of him again.....
 
Agreed completely. You know exactly what you are getting when you buy a new Jorn record! I'm very curious to hear the new Masterplan, and hear Jorn collaborating with a different crew for a change. Maybe get a bit of a fresh sound out of him again.....

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that as well. I love the title track, Spirit Black, because it reminds me of a vintage Dio song. The drum roll at the front sounds like it's from Dio's Straight Through The Heart! :kickass:

~Brian~