MUSIC REVIEW: Lucassen & Soeterboek’s Plan Nine - “The Long-Lost Songs”

May 6

Well, well, well, what do we have here? Yet another new band from Arjen Lucassen? Color me delighted! If you enjoy my writing, you might already know that I love exploring everything he does, so whenever there’s something new on offer, I’m always first in line to give it a listen. Now, don’t get me wrong… when Lucassen & Soeterboek’s Plan Nine was revealed unto the world with the first single, “Before the Morning Comes,” I was a bit hesitant. It’s a good song but it felt a little bit slow, especially with Supersonic Revolution having just recently been unveiled last year, which seemed to have a similar vibe on first listen. Fortunately, that song is one of the slowest on “The Long-Lost Songs,” which means that pretty much everything else is a spectacular plethora of musical delightfulness. Surely you may find some hit-or-miss, but myself, I loved the varied nature of the album.

In case you’re new here, I often like to use this first paragraph to give a general personal history on the artist, so if you’d like to compare your favorites to mine to see how comparable our tastes are, this next paragraph is for you! After all, music is subjective! So, with that in mind, feel free to skip down to the next paragraph if you’re not interested in my personal history with Arjen Lucassen’s music.

I first got into Arjen Lucassen back in the mid-2000s. I used to regularly visit the local music shop and “01011001” stared at me every time I went in, until finally I broke down and bought it just so I would stop seeing it sitting there every time I went in. I proceeded to get obsessed with the album for a window of time, ordered both “Universal Migrator” albums and “Into the Electric Castle,” and then completely forgot about the band after none of those albums really stood out to me (they have some incredible tracks, don’t get me wrong, and I love the stories, but they never grasped me musically the same way). Fast-forward to 2010: I kept hearing my former roommate singing something in her room, which turned out to be “Voices” from “The Human Equation,” which reminded me of the band’s existence. I can’t remember what led me to eventually getting into that album, but it has ever since become what I consider to be the best album ever written by anyone, ever. As such, I’ve been to every Ayreon live show (“Ayreon Universe” being my favorite-ever live show) and these days, what with the music media business I’ve been in for the past decade, I’ve actively been following Arjen’s career since “The Theater Equation” back in 2013. “The Theory of Everything” is, in my personal opinion, a half-super-brilliant-masterpiece with spectacular musicianship, half-too-much-talk-singing; however, I loved “The Source” and enjoyed “Transitus” despite its very different vibe. I’m quite fond of all three Star One albums, though the first is probably my favorite, and Supersonic Revolution was okay but not what I feel is his best work, and I love a few of his solos songs as well! I’ll toss my load of coverage links down at the bottom of this report, but hopefully that gives you a rundown, but suffice to say, I’m a fan.

On my very first listen already, when the album opened with “Doctor Robert’s Medicine Show,” my first thought was, “oh hey Mike Mills!” because that clearly sounds like him in the backing vocals. The album is immediately off to a great start, as this glorious intro goes into fantastic guitar lines, backed by groovin’ bass and a respectable drum performance. My second big thought was that Robert Soeterboek rules so hard. The second he opens his mouth, magic happens. Even better, he’s backed by these wonderful singers whose vocal lines crawl all over the place, and the C-part towards the end has some of that sci-fi drama that’s made Ayreon so famous over the years. Then it goes back into a swingin’ groove, like it’s nothing. What an absolutely killer track to start off the album!

There’s a bell and an ominous bass line leading into “The Preacher,” which takes things into a more mysterious mood. Some singing guitar lines lay down a sweet path for Soeterboek to enter upon, again backed by magnificent bursts from the backing singers. There’s a lot of fun drama in this song, as it feels like Soeterboek is playing a different role from the first song, and is having a blast with it. If this song was a little heavier, you could easily disguise it as a Star One track!

Things are a little more acoustic, stripped-down, and there’s even a bit of old country rock in “Annie Moore.” Full disclosure without spoilers, but this song is one of the best wordplays I’ve heard in a while, so I am living for this track! It doesn’t hurt that the backing vocals, organs, and amazing rockin’ groove from the band are creating pure magic either. There’s even a heavy metal guitar solo… this song refuses to pick a genre in the best sort of way—this is easily one of my favorite tracks on the album! If the rest of the album wasn’t so good, this one might be on repeat for a while. Instead, I’ll just be continuously spinning the whole release.

There’s a cheeky secretary telling the baws that there’s a skeezy salesman here to see him as an intro to “Get Down to Bizniz,” which further implements the spectacular bluesy guitar-rock that the album’s already been showing off impeccably. You can really tell that they must have been having fun when making this music, because every little fill is its own adventure. Soeterboek also sounds like he really loves what he’s singing. Don’t take that the wrong way, he always puts his whole self into his singing; what I mean is that you can tell he was involved in the writing process—you can feel his own personality coming out.

You may think I was throwing some shade on “Before the Morning Comes” before, but that’s far from the truth. The intro feels classily Metallica-influenced, while the gently-weeping-styled guitars have a more bluesy feel that I adore. This is a slower track and as mentioned earlier, it works really well in the context of the full album, allowing a bit of a breather from the other cheeky material that surrounds it.

I’m going to make a playlist someday about songs about driving that are also great for blasting while driving and “High Speed Chase” will certainly be on that playlist. This song really throws back to Deep Purple’s “Highway Star,” in both vibe and concept, which is never a bad thing, with all of those little hints of Arjen Lucassen’s flavor, like in the keyboard sound, guitars, and backing vocals. “Let it Ride” has such bounce to it that I was drawn back to BTO—likely because they have a song of the same name. That era pretty much hits this song dead-on though, with really uplifting music and truly, those backing vocals… if everything else wasn’t as-good, I’d say they’re one of the best parts of the album!

For a bit more of an ‘80s vibe, look no further than “Ice on Fire,” which has an intriguing blend of organs and synths, and a lot of soloing, with vocals that really remind me of synth-rock bands from the good old days. It’s a bit of an unusual track, genre-wise, compared to the other material, so one could argue that it doesn’t fit with the rest of the songs just as easily as they could say it shakes things up at a welcome point. They then steer fully into ‘90s country music with “Long Cold Night”—is this the first time I’ve heard steel guitar in anything Arjen’s done? Not only does it sound like the best of country music, the drumming is way better than you’d ever get in old country. Also, let’s be honest, not a lot of country bands had vocalists who were this good either. It’s a very fun song and I refuse to apologize for my love of classic country any longer! Okay, perhaps it’s really more country-rock, simply because the low-end is so elevated from what you got from country music back in the day, but that’s far from a complaint!

The opening of a bottle, dropping of ice into a glass, and glugging of a liquid pouring are the first things you’ll hear in “Drunker than Whiskey,” which sounds like it should be the country song on the album, but it’s very absolutely not a country song. This is way more groovy, with chugging guitars, subtle organs, and a lot of contributions from the backing ladies. I’d love to take a moment here to pause and focus on them, because you really don’t hear back-up singers (not to be confused with backing vocals) used enough these days outside of anything Arjen does and the odd band like The Night Flight Orchestra (who aren’t hitting it at this level, by the way). Some of my all-time favorite vocalists are artists like Erma Franklin and Merry Clayton, who did backing vocals for rock bands back in the ‘70s, so anything that feels influenced by that era is A-OK in my books! By the third time I heard this one, I had to stop what I was doing, crank it up, and have a dance party in my living room—it is too funky and catchy to not! This is my other album favorite, easily, and I’ll be surprised already if this is not my favorite song of the year… challengers welcome! PS: for anyone who’s played the Disco Elysium video game, I’ve started calling this one of the “Harry duBois tracks,” of which there are many on this album.

You’d be hard-pressed to find an Arjen Lucassen album that doesn’t have a killer closer, and you certainly won’t find such a lack on this release. “Die with Your Shades On” immediately brings Iron Maiden’s “Die with Your Boots On” to mind, but “Die with Your Shades On” is the groovy version of what they did in heavy metal, both in music and concept. The song feels like it touches on a little bit of everything that these guys are all about, while simultaneously building up the necessary drama to make a punchy and memorable finale to the already pretty-damned-excellent album. This one needs to be cranked up loud, so you can get the full impact of it.

Now, the album does have a full second disc with bonus tracks, early demos, and instrumental demos of the songs. I feel like writing reviews is kind of… me just spoiling the album for you, so I’m not going to spoil the second half of the album, but suffice to say, “Stand Tall” and “Night on Fire” are both perfectly good songs, but not as dialed-up-to-awesome as the songs that did make it onto the first disc. Also, I tend not to find demo songs all that interesting, but these are actually pretty fun to listen through, so I do recommend getting the 2-disc version, especially if you’re one of us big ol’ Arjen nerds.

“The Long-Lost Songs” might very well be one of my favorite non-Ayreon releases and comes highly recommended for fans of Arjen’s bluesier material! Perhaps it’s because I’ve been steering a bit more into rock lately, but there’s such a wide variety of fun, energetic, danceable tracks on this album that I simply can’t resist putting it on over and over and over. Mascot Label Group sometimes send their promos out very early, so I’ve been pining to put some of these songs on my Best of 2024 playlist for months now and finally they get to be on proper rotation! This is definitely one of the do-not-miss albums of 2024!

Tracklist

Doctor Robert’s Medicine Show
The Preacher
Annie Moore
Get Down to Bizniz
Before the Morning Comes
High Speed Chase
Let it Ride
Ice on Fire
Long Cold Night
Drunker than Whiskey
Die with Your Shades On

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bear wisemanreviewmusic reviewalbum reviewrock musicmascot label groupdebut albumhard rockarjen lucassenrobert soeterboeklucassen & soterboek's plan nineplan ninethe long-lost songs

Bear Wiseman

MUSIC REVIEW: Lucassen & Soeterboek’s Plan Nine - “The Long-Lost Songs”

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