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#44AYREON - UNIVERSAL MIGRATOR PART 1:THE DREAM SEQUENCERProg rock/Space rock/Oh-God-it's-Pink-Floyd-rock, 2000 Oh man. Oh man. Arjen Lucassen is one heck of a musician. His work is unfairly underrated: each Ayreon album is awesome, and Star One is also great. Still haven’t checked out his other stuff, but with time I will. I’m also looking forward to The Gentle Storm.
Anyways, let’s focus on Ayreon. Basically Arjen writes beautiful music, with a lot of different genres influences (mainly prog, metal and folk/classical). He then writes a concept for the album, and he invites various singers who each interpret a character in the story. Also, all the albums (not counting The Theory Of Everything and Actual Fantasy) have a grand story-line.
This album focuses on the last man alive: he’s on Mars, where people where sent while the Thrid World War was going on on Earth, in 2084. The man now realizes he’s the last one of the chain and uses a machine, called “The Dream Sequencer” which makes you relive the memories of your previous incarnations. The guy goes back in time and eventually realizes that not only he is the last man alive, he also was the first conscious man to live. One of the greatest climaxes ever.
This album’s music is more focused on relaxing prog rock/ambient, rather than crushing guitar riffs and technical stuff. It has a really soothing atmosphere and it really looks like your under hypnosis.
This album is also FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. Really, in all honesty, this is one of the most beautiful albums I’ve ever listened to. The songs are elegant, we have the dark but emotional “My House On Mars” opening the album, the epic “One Small Step”, which takes place in 1969 during the moon landing, “Dragon On The Sea” has gorgeous vocals so does “Temple Of The Cat”. The choruses of these songs made me nearly cry manly tears. The beauty, guys, the beauty. And the climax of the album, oh God. We have our dear Neal Morse singing “The First Man On Earth” which is one heck of an uplifting song. Once again, the chorus makes the magic happen.
Excellent album, even though as a whole it’s a little bit boring to listen to.
Go and listen to Ayreon if you didn’t, NOW.
GO AHEAD.
I’M WAITING FOR YOU.TRACKLIST:
1.The Dream Sequencer
2.My House On Mars (sung by Johan Edlund and Floor Jansen)
3.2084 (Lana Lane)
4.One Small Step (Edward Reekers)
5.The Shooting Company Of Captain Francis B. Cocq (Mouse)
6.Dragon On The Sea (Lana Lane)
7.Temple Of The Cat (Jacqueline Govaert)
8.Carried By The Wind (Arjen Lucassen)
9.And The Druids Turned To Stone (Damian Wilson)
10.The First Man On Earth (Neal Morse)
11.The Dream Sequencer (Reprise)
PERSONNEL:
Arjen Lucassen – electric/acoustic guitars, bass, keyboards
Rob Snijders – drums
Erik Nolanders – keyboards
Clive Nolan – synth solo on 3
Peter Siedlach – strings
Lana Lane – backing vocalsFavorites:
My House On Mars Dragon On The Sea Temple Of The Cat The First Man On EarthHow I've discovered Ayreon:Well, on Facebook the page Meme Theater continuosly posted about this project, claiming it was the best thing ever, and so I checked out The Human Equation. And after that nothing was the same again.
#43YES - FRAGILEClassic prog, 1971 And here we are. I need to describe my infamous relationship with classic progressive acts. The two of us really don’t get along. If you ask me how the most famous of the Genesis song goes, I will go completely “Nope”. Well, I know a bit of Genesis of course, but you know what I mean. To this there are three exceptions: Rush, Pink Floyd and (even if for just a few albums) Yes.
This here, ladies and gentlemen, was Dream Theater done 20 years before Dream Theater, you can feel a part of their roots coming from here, especially when it comes to wacky section and grand choruses.
Fragile is a very strange-structured album: it has 4 songs basically, the rest of the tracks are instrument-based songs, one for each member of the band. This is one of the earliest albums that uses my favorite concept for progressive music: complex, but simple. Infact, while there are some pretty complex songs in the record, like South Side Of The Sky and the monstrous Heart Of The Sunrise, there are also fun and catchy tunes like Roundabout and Long Distance Runaround. The tracklist, even though it’s pretty strange, seems to work greatly. The album has an overall enjoyable flow and nice instrumentation to it. But one thing bothers me. ONE DAMN THING.
WHY is Five Percent For Nothing a thing?!?
WHY?!?! WHYYYYYYYY *fades away
Tracklist: Personnel:
Roundabout Jon Anderson - vocals
Cans And Brahms Steve Howe – guitars, backing voc.
We Have Heaven Bill Bruford – drums
South Side Of The Sky Rick Wakeman - keyboards
Five Percent For Nothing Chris Squire – bass, backing voc.
Long Distance Runaround
The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)
Mood For A Day
Heart Of The Sunrise
Favorites:
Roundabout Long Distance Runaround Heart Of The SunriseHow I've discovered Yes:Well, I also knew Yes (three songs: Close To The Edge, Roundabout, Owner Of A Lonely Heart) but I wanted to get into them, so I started a thing on reddit (you can check it out
here) where I listened to the records and posted my thoughts. I did this with The
The Yes Album, Fragile and
Close To The Edge.