Jorn is a real workaholic, he keeps on singing and producing. Does this Norwegian guy never get tired? When I received the new album of Jorn, “The Duke”, I was very curious to know whether it would be comparable with the Masterplan-songs. During the two albums of Masterplan the songs changed from fast (Helloween-style) to more balanced melodic and sensitive hardrock songs. I personally liked that better, because with these songs his voice has much more power and emotions. Fortunately the songs on “The Duke” are great melodic hardrock songs with a lot of emotions and played by highly qualified musicians. What would you think of Dan Airy (Rainbow, Ozzy) on keyboards, Morty Black (TNT) on bass, Willy Bendiksen on drums (Jorn’s old mate of The Snakes with Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody). I wasn’t familiar with the guitar players (Tore Moren and Jorn (!) Viggo Lofstad), they are great players, just listen to the brilliant solo’s.

I expected a lot with this line-up and I didn’t get disappointed. Again Jorn has delivered a masterpiece.

As I already said above, the songs aren’t fast, “We brought The Angels Down” is a dark song, with a lot of power, suberb voices and great solo’s, “Blacksong” has a catchy melody. The album contains a few up-tempo songs “Stormcrow” and “Are You Ready”. The last one is a cover of Thin Lizzy. I normally don’t like covers, Jorn however turns almost every song into a strong song, so also this one. His voice fits this cover and again the solo’s are superb. “Burning Chains” is a beautiful ballad, while “Starfire” is my favorite song, a great power ballad with very emotional voices.

There are quite some people who are saying that the title of the album shouldn’t be “The Duke” but “The King”. I totally agree, this is hardrock on the highest level.