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Arjen Anthony Lucassen - Ayreon The Final Experiment
| Artist: | Arjen Anthony Lucassen |
| Title: | Ayreon The Final Experiment |
| Label: | Transmission TM-001 |
| Length(s): | 71 minutes |
| Year(s) of release: | 1995 |
| Month of review: | 12/1995 |
Line up
Lead singers are
Edward Reekers (Kayak), Lenny Wolf (Kingdom Come),
Robert Soeterbroek, Jan-Chris De Koeijer, Ian Parry (Vengeance), Barry Hay
(Golden Earring), Arjen Lucassen (Vengeance), Jan van Feggelen,
Leon Goewie, Ruud Houweling, Lucie Hillen, Mirjam van Doorn and Debby
Schreuder.
Arjen Lucassen - guitars, bass and keys
Cleem Determeijer (Finch) - on all kinds of keys including mellotron
Ernst van Ee (Helloise) - drums
Jolanda Verduijn - bass
Peter Vink (Finch, Q'65) - bass
Jan Bijlsma - bass
Barry Hay - alto flute.
Quite a number of people and this excludes Rene Merkelbach who does some
vocal parts.
Tracks
Act I The Dawning
| 2) | The Awareness | 6.36
|
| 3) | Eyes Of Time | 5.06
|
| 4) | The Banishment | 11.08
|
Act II King Arthur's Court
| 5) | Ye Courtyard Minstrel Boy | 2.46
|
| 6) | Sail Away To Avalon | 4.02
|
| 7) | Nature's Dance | 2.28
|
Act III Visual Echoes
| 8) | Computer-reign (game Over) | 3.25
|
| 9) | Waracle | 6.44
|
| 10) | Listen To The Waves | 4.59
|
| 11) | Magic Ride | 3.36
|
Act IV Merlin's will and Ayreon's fate
| 12) | Merlin's Will | 3.20
|
| 13) | The Charm Of The Seer | 4.12
|
| 14) | Swan Song | 2.44
|
| 15) | Ayreon's Fate | 6.56
|
All songs written by Arjen Anthony Lucassen except the lyrics to 5) by
Ian Parry.
Summary
Lucassen is the guitarist of the now demised Dutch hard rock band Vengeance.
It seems that all along he has wanted to compose a rock opera and now he
has finally done it with the help of many 'well-known' people including
people from Finch and someone from Kayak (names that ring a bell?).
I've read a few reviews on this album already and because it's a rock opera
there's always the tendency to regard it as dated from the outset.
Personally I think that's overdoing it especially since a band like Queenryche
managed to do Operation: Mindcrime and Savatage did Gutter Ballet and both
were quite good. Because Lucassen is from a hard rock band as well, we might
expect something along these lines, or do we?
The music
This is a rock opera, not really progressive, but can be interesting for
prog fans. The music contains ballads, hard rock, melodic rock and the
keyboards are important as well. A problem with these is that they do
sound outdated at times. Still, the album contains a lot of good singing,
a lot of good playing and some interesting music as well.
Minor points are the trumpet intro's, very bombastic and unreal and sometimes
Lucassen borrows from prog fame names like ELP in 4. So, what we have here is an
album that contains a lot of good material, but is not strong from beginning
to end. The melodies are alright, but well there's this Jeff Wayne cheesiness
on the prowl (remember Spartacus), but no Spartacus is below this really.
Most of the other famous rock opera's however are better than this, but we
have to remember that this is a rather low budget project compared to those
other projects.
The only thing, besides the dated keyboard sound, that worries me is the story.
I'm not very fond of the King Arthur Saga (especially after some recounts),
and I wish he had chosen some more subtle and original message to pass on,
instead of the well-known 'save the world'. Anyway it isn't given to anyone,
and let us not forget that most of these projects are in some way based on
a previous one.
Anyway, the story is about this bloke Ayreon, who becomes subjected to visions
from the future (not very believable) and he has to warn everyone of the
oncoming doom. The story then continues of him being chased away and having
problems with himself (what I can easily understand). Merlin also enters the
pciture as being jealous of Aryeon, but Merlin changes his mind after having a
vision himself and then HE sends a message to our times (yes, yes, this CD,
yes), because in the Middle Ages they didn't really feel like changing their
ways: that's for future generations. The story has a rather trite ending, being
that 'The Outcome of the Final Experiment has now been placed in your hands'.
Well, like I said the music can be quite bombastic and quite subdued as well.
It contains some very good parts like the semi-ballad 2 and the varied 4.
Like any piece of work of this size, nothing really sticks, but that's okay.
I do think it was more varied than for instance Marillions Brave, but I still
like that better.
Conclusion
How does this project compare to other projects of similar ideas though not
of similar scale like Tommy, War of the Worlds, The Wall, Spartacus and
what's more. I think it holds up to Spartacus, which I thought was pretty bad,
but is not up to par with the others. First of all the tale is a little too
uninvolved and far sought. The music moves through just about every spectrum
of hard rock to melodic rock passing along the way good old progressive rock.
A trouble I have with the album is the rather dated sound of the keyboards,
too seventies for my tastes in such a modern work and also the replacing
real life trumpets by keyboard generated ones doesn't do any good. Also
the use of female backgroundchoirs is not very to my liking but I'm just not
very fond of those.
The music is bombastic to say the least, but can be soothing and subtle as well.
As a whole a rather ambiguous piece of work. Still worthwhile for lovers of the
genre and a daring attempt.
© Jurriaan Hage