(bk) Once more, Arjen Anthony Lucassen, the "father" of Ayreon, presents us a new CD - or better two - full of beautiful progressive songs in the widest sense of the word "prog", ranging from slightly psychodelic, ambiental prog and symphonic sounds to progressive metal. "01011001" is a concept album as its predecessors, continuing the storyline started in previous Ayreon releases. It's one of those albums you have to take your time to listen to, you can't listen to some song or another while riding in the bus or the underground with lots of backgroundnoise and interruptions. It's music meant for making yourself comfortable at home and reserving at least two hours for just enjoying it and letting your thoughts wander without any kind of mundane interruptions. It's really worth it. At first "01011001" is maybe not as impressive as other works by Arjen, but that's just a wrong first impression, because the album may be more compact, but is incredibly elaborate, every note is exactly in the right place, it just couldn't be any different. It takes some time to grasp this beautiful simple complexity. But it gets more familiar the more you listen to it, and once you're into it, it's really addictive and refuses to leave your CD player. The production is over the top, especially the guitar sound is a piece of art in its own right. Once again the list of famous guest singers is interminable, each of them doing a part in this prog musical - among them we can find Floor Jansen, Tom Englund, Daniel Gildenlöw, Anneke van Giersbergen, Ty Tabor, Jonas Renske, Bob Catley and many more, as well as some more guest musicians like Lori Lindstruth, Derek Sherinian, Tomas Bodin, Michael Romeo, Joost van den Broek - the world is a small place, and the prog world even more so.
The storyline of this concept album takes on cosmological dimensions and continues with the Ayreon saga, in a way it even ends a chapter. But we won't give away anything, as it's part of the fun to find out about the story for yourself while listening to the music.
"01011001" is a magnificent, musically sublime album, original, beautiful, moving, possibly exceeding all of Arjen's previous works.
(15-03-2008) |
