01011001 (2008)
Release date: January 25th, 2008
Length: 102:16Tracklist:CD 1 : Y1. Age of Shadows (incl. We are Forever)
2. Comatose
3. Liquid Eternity
4. Connect the Dots
5. Beneath the Waves
I. Beneath the Waves
II. Face the Facts
III. But a Memory…
IV. World Without Walls
V. Reality Bleeds
6. Newborn Race
I. The Incentive
II. The Vision
III. The Procedure
IV. Another Life
V. Newborn Race
VI. The Conclusion
7. Ride the Comet
8. Web of Lies
CD 2: Earth1. The Fifth Extinction
I. Glimmer of Hope
II. World of Tomorrow Dreams
III. Collision Course
IV. From the Ashes
V. Glimmer of Hope (reprise)
2. Waking Dreams
3. The Truth is in Here
4. Unnatural Selection
5. River of Time
6. E=mc²
7. The Sixth Extinction
I. Echoes on the Wind
II. Radioactive Grave
III. 2085
IV. To the Planet of Red
V. Spirit on the Wind
VI. Complete the Circle
Personnel:Arjen Anthony Lucassen — recording, production, mixing, mastering and all instruments not mentioned in the section below
Jef Bertels — artwork
Felipe Machado Franco — lay-out and illustrations
Simon van Vegten — 3D illustrations for CD1
Vocalists:Forever:Tom S. Englund (Evergrey)
Steve Lee (Gotthard)
Daniel Gildenlöw (Pain of Salvation)
Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian)
Floor Jansen (Nightwish)
Anneke van Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering, VUUR)
Jonas Renske (Katatonia)
Jorn Lande (Allen/Lande, Masterplan)
Magali LuytenBob Catley (Magnum)
Men:Ty Tabor (King’s X) — an average middle-class worker on “Connect the Dots”
Simone Simons (Epica) — Simone on “Web of Lies”
Phideaux Xavier (Phideaux) — PX on “Web of Lies”
Arjen Anthony Lucassen — Mr. L on “The Truth is in Here” and backing vocals on “Connect the Dots”
Liselotte Hegt (Dial) — Mr. L’s nurse on “The Truth is in Here”
Wudstik — a 21st-century scientist on “E=mc²”
Marjan Welman — a 21st-century scientist on “E=mc²”
MusiciansEd Warby — drums and percussion
Ben Mathot — violin
David Faber — cello
Jeroen Goossens — flute on “Age of Shadows”, “Comatose”, “Liquid Eternity”, “Beneath the Waves”, “Web of Lies”, “The Truth is in Here”, “Unnatural Selection” and “River of Time”; soprano and tenor recorder or “The Truth is in Here”, bass flute on “Unnatural Selection”, tin whistle on “River of Time”
Lori Linstruth — guitar solo on “Newborn Race”
Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater) — synth solo on “The Fifth Extinction”
Tomas Bodin (The Flower Kings) — synth solo on “Waking Dreams”
Michael Romeo (Symphony X) — guitar solo on “E=mc²”
Joost van den Broek — synth solo and piano on “The Sixth Extinction”
History / BackgroundThe period after the release of
Embrace the Storm and before the next Ayreon album was the most difficult and most painful for Arjen. He and his wife went through a divorce, which, in some later interviews, he attributed to him spending most of his time engaged in creating music. In 2007, while going out with Heather Findlay, who performed on
The Human Equation, Arjen apparently caught a virus which caused him to suffer from anosmia, a disease which causes the loss of taste and smell. The combination of anosmia and the divorce caused him to fall into a deep depression. Not only that, but his long-time manager decided to pursue her own goals and quit the job. Arjen had to climb out from the deep pit of depression he found himself in, and he did that by pouring his feelings into the music.
After the divorce, he moved into his own house and set up his studio over there, calling it The Electric Garage—which was, admittedly, smaller than The Electric Castle he was recording in previously. He changed his approach to writing music—for
The Human Equation, he had most of the ideas before he entered the studio to properly record them; for the new album, he did most of his writing in the studio. He had a difficult time coming up with new material, and all the songs he managed to write turned out to be hopeless and dark. It came to the point he called his label, InsideOut and told them that this time it would be a single Ayreon album, a gloomy and dark one. Still, they gave him the green light for it.
However, during the writing process, musical ideas started popping up that were more uplifting and hopeful in comparison to Arjen’s first written material for the album. The ideas grew into songs, and the album went from single to double. As Arjen repeatedly mentioned in interviews given shortly after the album’s release, the music turned out to be the best healer for him. The album’s mood, while mostly dark and gloomy, was diluted by a few genuinely bright, hopeful moments among the doom, stagnation and hopelessness—the battle of emotions that became sort of a theme for the album.
Singers and musicians / Choosing the charactersThat being said, the album’s mood wasn’t that obvious in the choice of singers. A lot of singers performing on this record are well-known by their progressive or power metal bands (Blind Guardian, Pain of Salvation, Evergrey and so on); as Arjen admitted later, he was simply looking for some well-known singers whose voice would give him goosebumps. However, by the time Arjen finished writing the material, he was still struggling with depression. He had no confidence in the material he wrote, and he had no idea how anyone would take it, because this time, more than ever, it came straight from the feelings and thoughts he was harbouring inside. He sent e-mails to some musicians, planning to have his usual amount of nine or ten different singers, but none of them responded for a few weeks. A little bit desperate, Arjen contacted other musicians, and then within a week most of his e-mails received a positive response—so he ended up with 17 different singers on one album.
Note: this information is different from interview to interview, but sometimes Arjen provided this version of events, and sometimes he said he was a bit insecure so he contacted all singers at once, suspecting most of them would reject the invitations—which of course didn’t happen.All of the above doesn’t mean that Arjen picked the singers spontaneously. Jorn Lande was planned to have the biggest vocal role on the album, and this plan was fulfilled—he’s the most featured singer on the record, and his voice is always instantly recognizable. In interviews, Arjen received questions about Jorn and his willingness to participate in every guest project he was invited to; Arjen responded that if this guy gets so many invitations, he’s probably one of the best singers in the world. However, not all the plans Arjen had for the lineup worked. For example, Roy Khan was actually asked to perform on this album—he never appeared on anything Arjen-related—but he declined, and Daniel Gildenlöw was chosen to sing Khan’s parts.
While there are too many talented and famous singers on this album to describe in full detail, a special mention should be given to the late Steve Lee from Gotthard, the man who once auditioned for Vengeance, Arjen’s band from 80s. Arjen had wanted to collaborate with him ever since he started Ayreon, but it never worked out due to time limitations and other reasons. On this album, the collaboration finally came to life. When Steve Lee came to Arjen’s studio, his manager warned Arjen that Steve can only be featured on four tracks. Steve recorded those four tracks in two hours, and when he was finished, he wanted more parts to sing; Arjen tried to protest, because of what Steve’s manager had said, but Steve insisted, saying something along the lines of “oh, fuck the manager,” and he ended up performing on eight songs. That was one of his last studio performances, along with Gotthard album called
Need to Believe, before his death in 2010.
The singers weren’t only performing Arjen’s material—some of them actually wrote their own vocal melodies. Anneke van Giersbergen, who also wrote her own melodies for a few songs on
Into the Electric Castle, wrote her parts on Age of Shadows and Waking Dreams, and Jonas Renske from Katatonia wrote all his melodies for the album. The plentiful ad libs on this album, which reflect an unusual approach for Ayreon, were also free for the musicians to improvise.
The huge number of singers on this album resulted in a lack of lengthy passages from the characters, and instead they’re mostly trading one-line responses to each other. While some of the singers have the dramatic, operatic voices that are meant to impress the listener, some of the guests have more ordinary voices... which fits exactly into the plot Arjen wrote for this album.
PlotThe action takes place simultaneously on two planets: Y (which is the planet where the race Forever of the Stars dwells—it’s name could be pronounced as “why?”, and it’s name is also reflected in the album’s name—
01011001 is the letter Y in ASCII code); and Earth. While the first CD is called “Y” and the second CD is called “Earth”, there are songs from each planet on both CDs.
Note: I saw discussions of whether the multiple singers represent different characters from the Forever race, or if it’s all the same being arguing with himself. I’m going to assume the former, because the latter strikes me as a bit silly.The following events happen during the times dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The race of aquatic beings called Forever is living on Planet Y, having lost all their emotions in exchange for immortality, living through machines (
Age of Shadows,
Comatose). Some of the Forever aren’t happy with this and seek to regain their emotions back, even if it means losing their immortality, while the conservative members of society oppose them—each side brings their own arguments to the discussion (
Liquid Eternity,
Beneath the Waves). As the discussion progresses, Forever decide to plant a newborn race on a fitting planet to revitalize their race and regain their emotions by living through the newborn species (
Newborn Race), so they plant their DNA on a comet that is on a collision course with Earth (
Ride the Comet).
Meanwhile, in the 21st century, the things on Earth are going in due course—we see a middle-class worker spending his usual days polluting the Earth using his car and polluting himself with cigarettes and fast-food (
Connect the Dots), then we see a pair trying to hook up via an Internet dating website (
Web of Lies).
The comet with Forever DNA finds its way to Earth, and despite the heated discussion between the Forever regarding whether it’s the right way to do things, it collides with the planet, and the explosion’s impact exterminates the dinosaurs in what would later be known as
The Fifth Extinction. A new race, humans, arises from Forever DNA, and through human dreams, Forever are able to relive the emotions they once used to feel (
Waking Dreams). However, the people who were once influenced by Forever appear to have visions of their previous encounters, which scares people like Mr. L’s nurse—Mr. L, who, apparently, was the Hippie who travelled
Into the Electric Castle (
The Truth is in Here), is now treated with pills to sedate him.
Everything is going quite well until some of the Forever are dismayed with the people’s incompetence and inability to overcome the simplest problems on Earth, such as microbes and illnesses. They propose to speed up the humans’ evolution, and despite the reasonable protests that this would lead to overpopulation and other scary things, the Forever share their knowledge with humans, which results in humans developing the same problem the Forever did once: they become technology-dependant, losing their emotions and wanting to resolve their problems with wars and conflicts (
Unnatural Selection). Realizing their mistake, Forever try to find a way to warn human race of their inevitable demise, teaching them to send the telepathic messages back in time (
River of Time). The knowledge reaches two human scientists in a dream, and they try to pass it back to the previous centuries, but they aren’t sure if their messages are getting through (
E=mc²). As of the year 2085, the humans on Earth have exterminated themselves in a series of nuclear wars, and Forever are about to lose their chance to regain emotions. The whole race is in despair, and the bravest of them advices the others to “stop the machines, prepare to die” (
The Sixth Extinction).
As there are no humans left on Earth, Forever now focus on the last surviving humans on Mars. They witness the eventual death of all the humans inhabiting the red planet, including the last surviving colonist, who uses
The Dream Sequencer to preincarnate back in time, and eventually becomes the New Migrator. He then sets on a quest to free Forever from their dependence on machines and rekindle their capacity for emotion.
MusicAs I said above, the music on this album is darker and heavier than on the whole than on the album’s predecessor,
The Human Equation. The songs can be mostly divided in two categories musically, apparently depending on the planet they take place. When the song is set on Planet Y featuring Forever’s thoughts and discussions, it’s usually more brooding and epic sounding, with distinctive dramatic approach to the vocals, mostly operatic and powerful. When the song is set on Earth, the music is simpler, more approachable, and more mundane—reflecting the differences between two races. However, since according to the plot, the humans began their existence from Forever DNA, and therefore have similarities to them, so do the songs—despite the various different factors in writing and execution, they still sound similar enough to recognize the familiar Ayreon sound.
As opposed to the more organic and natural sound of
Into the Electric Castle and
The Human Equation,
01011001 has a lot of sci-fi themed synths on it, which, along with distorted guitar riffs, make the album sound more computerized. That sound, including the heaviness, goes hand-in-hand with raw vocal power of all the singers invited. Still, there is enough diversity to the album for it to retain a sense of flow. There are long, multi-section epics like
The Fifth Extinction and
The Sixth Extinction, there are ballads and softer songs like
Comatose and
Waking Dreams, there are folk-oriented songs like
River of Time and maybe
Newborn Race, and then there is one obligatory song with Pink Floyd influence written all over it,
Beneath the Waves.
All in all, despite the darker mood, the album has plenty of typical Ayreon fare. Critics accused
01011001 of bringing nothing new to the table in terms of Ayreon music, and Arjen said in the several interviews that “if you hate my music, you’re going to hate this album, and if you like what I do, you’ll probably going to like this one.”
My ThoughtsFirst of all, I really like this album. The high moments are incredible, like those Jorn Lande / Floor Jansen trade-offs during
Liquid Eternity and
Beneath the Waves, or the Bob Catley / Daniel Gildenlöw quiet moments in
The Sixth Extinction, or Jonas Renske on
Waking Dreams… I could go on and on. There are a lot of things to like on
01011001, and it’s probably my 4th favourite Ayreon album overall.
But there are a few things that make me enjoy this album a bit less. First, I don’t think it needed to be as long as it is. It’s longer than
The Human Equation by two seconds, but while I feel that
The Human Equation has perfect flow and no filler whatsoever, I can’t say the same for this record. I mean, I’m not going to call any song here “filler”, but my attention tends to wander during songs like
Connect the Dots,
Web of Lies or
Unnatural Selection, and I wouldn’t miss any of those. I know that, technically,
Unnatural Selection is important plot-wise, but I just dislike that song. Second, the number of singers is overwhelming, and they don’t get their time to shine except maybe Jorn, Floor, Anneke and Steve Lee. I’ve listened to this album a lot of times, and if you ask me which songs have Tom Englund or Daniel Gildenlow, I could only name you one or two for certain, and for the others, I would have to guess. Third, there are some instrumental sections that go on for too long, in my opinion, like the one in
The Fifth Extinction. It has a few decent ideas, but by repeating them over and over it becomes too predictable and too boring. The one in
Liquid Eternity might also fall into that category, but at least it has as a long buildup with an incredible payoff.
While I have those criticisms about music, I’ve got no objections about the plot of this album. I like it a lot, more than any other Forever-related Ayreon album, (not counting
The Human Equation). I like how Arjen wrapped the story up, or at least it seemed so back then—with the announcement of
The Source, we know the story isn’t done, even though the album would take place before the events depicted on this album. And overall, it’s a damn fine album, a great conclusion to the story and a worthy addition to Ayreon discography.