Band:	Beautiful Sin
Album:	The Unexpected
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	May 19, 2006
A review by:	Jeff

01. Lost
02. This Is Not The Original Dream
03. Take Me Home
04. I'm Real
05. The Spark Of Ignition
06. Colser To My Heart
07. Give Up Once For All
08. Brace For Impact
09. Pechvogel
10. Metalwaves
11. The Beautiful Sin
12. Le Rêve Originel [Europe Ltd Ed bonus]
13. She Is Made Of Rain [Japan Ltd Ed bonus]
14. Hidden Track [Europe Ltd Ed bonus]

Actually, I know the existence of "The Unexpected" and the project Beautiful Sin since a lot of time? Well to enlighten you, I discovered Magali Luyten and Samuel Arkan (who also worked with Uli and Mag on "The Unexpected") some years ago with their ex-band (Over Us Eden, (they're now in Virus 4 by the way). Since that I strongly believe in their musical qualities I follow carefully their career and I keep contact with them. You can understand that I was extremely proud to see that Magali was chosen to be the singer of the new excellent project of Mr Uli Kusch. Now that I had the luck to listen to the album, I know that it was a good choice and let me tell you that it is just great!

"The Unexpected" is an album of Melodic Power Heavy Metal but it's also a bit progressive. You know, when you have in your line up some guys of Masterplan with in addition, Jorn Viggo of Pangan's Mind, it's not really surprising. Well, the music of Beautiful Sin is not so far away of Masterplan on a side, but the big difference is that it is a lot more direct and evidently? we have a female singer here. I'm sure that you'll quickly understand that Beautiful Sin is a "rock" band, I mean that their music is powerful as hell and extremely catchy. Some songs like "Lost" or "Pechvogel" are simply Heavy Metal hits and their structures have this little touch of aggressively that a lot of Metalheads enjoy. It's "sharpy" like a razor and let's be honest, the amazing voice of Magali helps a lot on this point. But well, there are also some cool progressive songs that will remind you the sound of Pagan's Mind and Masterplan. "Metalwaves' with its important Keyboards background is probably the best proof of the progressive side of Beautiful Sin. "The Unexpected" is not linear, this is a varied album.

The cover is great, the production (like with 99% of the bands that come from Germany) is perfect but I cannot talk about this album if I didn't talk about Magali Luyten. I know that the Symphonic Metal female singers bore some of you but I really hope that you're not doing any amalgam with Magali. She is a Heavy Metal singer! She has a really nice hoarse voice (a bit like Skin of Skunk Anansie) and believe me, it's good to listen to this kind of singer nowadays. First because it's new and uncommon and second because it proves that female singers into Metal can do others stuff than Gothic or Symphonic music. Magali doesn't suffer of any comparison with the others guys who sing in the same category, at the opposite she gives a lot of others things and possibilities to the music through her original voice and that's classy.

If you like Uli Kusch and Masterplan, if you like Heavy Metal and want to discover an amazing singer, I really recommend you all to have a look on this album. "The Unexpected" is an excellent surprise and I really hope that Uli and his mates will release a lot of others albums. Highly recommend.