| Artist: | Aryeon |
| Title: | Actual Fantasy |
| Label: | Transmission T.M.008 |
| Length(s): | 53 minutes |
| Year(s) of release: | 1996 |
| Month of review: | 10/1996 |
| 1) | Actual Fantasy | 1.35 |
| 2) | Abbey Of Synn | 9.34 |
| 3) | The Stranger From Within | 7.36 |
| 4) | Computer Eyes | 7.31 |
| 5) | Beyond The Last Horizon | 7.34 |
| 6) | Farside Of The World | 6.21 |
| 7) | Back On The Planet Earth | 7.01 |
| 8) | Forevermore | 6.10 |
Bonus CD rom track featuring the animated video of 3.
The album really starts with the Abbey of Synn, which starts out with spooky voices in a church. The track itself is rather moody and dark in the beginning. Also rather threatening when we are waiting for the violent guitars, that release us only after three minutes. The middle part of the track can best be described as bombastic guitar rock, of the better kind, because the song sticks in your head and has some very good melodies. Then we get the quieter part again, after which the guitar returns and a keyboardsolo is thrown in.
The next track is the "single". Again, the style is progressive hardrock, not so technical as for instance Dream Theater, but very melodic and with enough variation to please a progressive rock lover. The keyboardsolo by Cleem Determeijer is very ELPish.
Computer Eyes reminds me of the atmospheric Pink Floyd (maybe some One of these days, but friendlier). The subject of the track is rather nice, about a person or being locked inside a computer wondering what he actually is. Again good melodies with, again, a good keyboard solo by Determeijer.
The vocals on Beyond the last horizon are very monotonic, unless Reekers sings the very melodic chorus, which reminds me a bit of ELO. Against the background of a battlefield, the song tells of a man mortally wounded and his struggle to stay on the right side of life.
Farside of the world is rather like the previous track, but with a lot of bleeping and teetering keyboards. Again the
If you have both Live at the Target of Twelfth Night and this album, you might want to compare the intro to this track to that album. As often happens on this album, the vocals are vocoded and this also introduces a certain kind of variation, using this to make it seem apparent that parts of the same song are sung by different characters.
The closing track is a ballad which in the chorus is a little too mellow for my tastes. The style, with violin and clavecimbel is rather medieval, but also reminds me of ELO, probably because of the vocals.
The albums also contains a bonus track with a video clip of The stranger from within. It played immediately under Windows NT, although it has no sound. I'm not sure if there should have been, but it might easily have been my set-up.
The packaging like the whole of the CD is professional and well-done.