So what's the final verdict on Star Three?
I myself am torn. It is a very good record, but it's also a lost opportunitiy to be so much more.
The music is really good and has a very definite Star One feel to it, it's not as Ayreon-like as I feared after hearing some snippets.
The cast of singers and musicians is really good.
But, what I liked about the first and second Star One was the steady cast for all of the songs. Lucassen got again all of them and he's not even using them in at least one song together? That's a shame. I miss those interactions of singers in the songs, apart from Prescient none of those songs has multiple singers (well, apart from the background singers obviously).
Then there's the second disc with the same songs but different singers. Okay, this is a nice addition but, as all of them are more or less powerhouse vocalists, and the songs are otherwise absolutely the same, there's not much that makes the alternate versions stand out to me.
If Lucassen had made the first disc with the original cast (Wilson, Allan, Swano, Jansen) that would make it a real Star One record and then have the second disc with different singers and for me, that would have been a big improvement.
So, all in all, I really like it, but it could have been better.