Lucassen & Soeterboek’s Plan Nine – The Long-Lost Songs

Although Plan Nine has its origins in the nineties and quite a bit of material was written at the time, it never became a full-length album. Musical all-rounder Arjen Anthony Lucassen and singer Robert Soeterboek, the men behind this project, were busy with other things. For Lucassen, for example, it was the start of Ayreon. Everyone who likes hard, progressive music now knows the rock operas under that name. Soeterboek can be heard on Lucassen’s Star One, among others. With his deep, warm voice he provided the futuristic metal songs with the necessary fire. After listening to the old recordings from decades ago again in 2022, interest in Plan Nine was renewed. The result of that is The Long Lost Songs.

The CD version consists of two discs with very diverse tracks on the first eleven. These also appear on vinyl. In addition to Lucassen and Soeterboek, the company consists of the names Marcel Singor (guitar), Koen Herfst (drums), Rob van der Loo (bass), Joost van den Broek (hammond organ) and backing singers Irene Jansen and Jane Goulding, some of whom are familiar to Lucassen fans. makes music that is full of influences from the seventies and eighties. Think of quite a bit of blues, hard rock, power pop and AOR. The multitude of influences ensures that each song has its own character, although the unmistakable Lucassen signature can be recognized in all music. Don’t be surprised if the music resembles a stripped-down version of Star One, Ayreon or the recent work of Supersonic Revolution. Of course, this cannot be otherwise with overlapping artists. However, that is not an objection.

Plan Nine has enough quirkiness to stand on its own. So shouts the opening track Doctor Robert’s Medicine Show associations with The Beatles, while the heavy guitar work towards the end and the background vocals fit more with Star One. The fine blues vibes, which are especially expressed in Soeterboek’s wonderful vocal lines and the warm Hammond sounds, provide the glue between the different parts. The cheerful Long Cold Night and the sultry Annie Moore have a rough country character, while eighties influences burst out of the speakers during the AOR song Ice On Fire. During the vicious High Speed ​​Chase Soeterboek shows its dark, swinging side and in Gimme The Nighttime blues, hard rock and disco are mixed into a great track that wouldn’t have been out of place on Deep Purple’s Whoosh! (2020).

The latter song is together with Stand Tall can be found on disc two of the CD version and, in addition to these two tracks, contains a fair amount of demo material for real connoisseurs. It is fun to compare it to the completed whole and look for differences in titles, text and music.

The Long Lost Songs is a colorful, multicolored collection of tracks. Most attention rightly goes to the versatile vocals of Robert Soeterboek, but the real power of this disc lies in the fine interplay during the catchy tracks.

Disc 1:
1. Doctor Robert’s Medicine Show
2. The Preacher
3. Annie Moore
4. Get Down To Bizniz
5. Before The Morning Comes
6. High Speed ​​Chase
7. Let It Ride
8. Ice On Fire
9. Long Cold Night
10. Drunker Than Whiskey
11. Die With Your Shades On

Disc 2:
1. Stand Tall
2. Gimme The Nighttime
3. Annie Moore – Demo
4. Get Down To Bizniz – Demo
5. High Speed ​​Chase – Demo
6. Gimme The Nighttime – Demo
7. Magic Moments – Demo
8. Let It Ride – Home Demo
9. My Baby Loves Me – Home Demo
10. Stand Tall – Home Demo
11. Night On Fire – Home Demo
12. Life Goes On – Home Demo
13. Doctor Robert’s Medicine Show – Instrumental Demo
14. Get Down To Bizniz – Home Demo
15. Magic Moments – Home Demo
16. Drunker Than Whiskey – Instrumental Demo
17. Long Cold Night – Instrumental Demo
18. Die With Your Shades On – Instrumental Demo 1
19. Die With Your Shades On – Instrumental Demo 2
20. Unnamed 1 – Instrumental Demo
21. Unnamed 2 – Instrumental Demo