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As is often the case for Jorn's solo work, the vocals are top notch, but the songs themselves leave much to be desired. Just as there are great guitarists who REALLY need to team up with a good song writer for their potential to come through (for example, George Lynch and Jake E. Lee), there are great singers who are much better when someone else carries the burden of composing. I think Jorn is one of them. Without Jorn's vocals on this release, it would be far too boring and derivative.

Great performance, mediocre material.

I gotta say that sums up my feelings towards this album as well, and it was a nice review! Now the album is not as good as "The Duke", although I do think it tops "Out To Every nation". What surprised me a bit is that I noticed that your favourite tracks on this album were those I liked the least... "Lonely Are The Brave", "Night City" and "Shadow People" were the highlights. "Primises" could have been THE song of the album if the rest of the song had been as infectious as the chorus.

The title-track and Promises aren't that bad, but Night City is really boring in my opinion.

I though the song was great with it's heavy guitar melody. And the vocal lines in the verses reminded me a lot of Dio. But overall, "The Duke" is a more consistent effort, and IMO it seems a bit more thought through. The vocals were a bit more laid back but with a little hint of more "harshness" (my way of explaining comes off as corny sometimes )

I love The Duke, much more exciting to listen too.

The Duke was great but this isn't as good, I had a listen and didn't buy it.

Have to go with the majority here.. it's a good release but a bit inconsistent to me, compared to The Duke... although personally, my favorite remains Out to Every Nation.

Another flawed album by Jorn though a bit better and not that inconsistent than The Duke. That album had all of its good songs packed in the first half. Lonely Are The Brave gets stronger after Night City with its best songs in the middle. My pick for killer songs is - War Of The World, Shadow People and Promises. Second half of Soul Of The Wind is also great. Nothing still beats Out To Every Nation. My score is 75.

I love Jorn, love what he does in all his "guest star" work, but you all seem to have confirmed what I thought after listening to samples of this. I'll pass. I really like The Duke---though, great point, the 2nd half is not as strong as the 1st. Solo, sometimes Jorn sounds like he is channeling a great Dio, Coverdale or Paul Rodgers vibe without the songs coming off like blatant imitations---like the best tracks on The Duke---other times his songs are uncomfortably like carbon copies. Some of the samples I heard of this one just sounded too close to being clones of old Dio songs.

Great point above on Jorn maybe needing to collaborate to be at his best. I think neither Jorn solo, nor Masterplan without Jorn is nearly as good as Masterplan with Jorn. Really liked their debut and I think Aeronautics is a future classic. The new Masterplan is crap (and that's no offense to the new singer, the songs are just not even in the same ballpark).

Have you listened to Out to Every Nation? To me, that's by far one of the best things Jorn has ever done, solo or not.

clearly, but i have a hard time separatating those two. They're so good both of them.

Haven't heard anything from that one; I will definitely check it out.

You stated some real facts in there... While I also dig Jorn solo (especially "The Duke"), it just can't compete with Masterplan or "Aeronautics" (one of my all time favourite albums). Still feel that his best performance are on the newest Avantasia album and on the first Masterplan. And HELL YEAH! While the newest Masterplan is ok, it was a major dissapointment for me... not just because of the vocalist, as stated above (he doesn't hold a candle to Jorn), but also because of the songs. They haven't got those catchy hooks nor the power of earlier songs. Mike is a good vocalist, but sounds too thin, and gets drown in the music.

I love this album. I am new to Jorn and his solo works. But man I feel the criticism is somewhat harsh of this excellent album.
I have the Masterplan and the Allen/Lande but this just rocks.

Check out his earlier work, and you'll see where we all come from... Out to every nation and the duke is so much better than this