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Ayreon

The progressive metal outfit Ayreon is Dutch multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Arjen Anthony Lucassen (ex-Vengeance) with a cast of collaborators and musical guests that changes from project to project. Ayreon albums are large-scale concept epics or metal operas, featuring different vocalists for each character. Lucassen formed Ayreon in 1994 and released The Final Experiment in 1995. Actual Fantasy was released in 1996, and Ayreon got more elaborate with the multi-part concept album Universal Migrator (2000). 2008's 01011001 featured 17 vocalists, 2013's globally acclaimed The Theory of Everything took on the topic of physics, and 2017's The Source sold well globally. Following several live albums, Ayreon returned to studio recording with 2020's Transitus. In 2024, 01011001: Live Beneath the Waves appeared, featuring 2023 performances of the 2008 album. Ayreon is a musical project created by Arjen Anthony Lucassen, a Dutch multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, arranger, and producer. His music is usually defined within the parameters of progressive metal, or progressive rock, but also features interwoven strains of power metal, folk, electronica, experimental, and classical music. The majority of Ayreon's albums are either concept sets or "metal operas" as they contain complex plot lines and large casts -- each represented by a unique vocalist -- performed by a revolving-door international cast of top-flight musicians. Lucassen formed Ayreon in 1994 and released The Final Experiment, in 1995, followed quickly by Actual Fantasy in 1996. Ayreon's grandly conceived third album, 1998's Into the Electric Castle: A Space Opera wed Greek mythology to science fiction and featured no less than eight singers, Fish and Anneke van Giersbergen among them. 2004's The Human Equation included symphonic strings and another large cast of vocalists. Lucassen even flew Mayan leader singer/violinist Marcela Bovio from Mexico for the sessions (something he continues to do). 2008 saw the issue of 01011001, a concept outing that desired to trace the "secret history" behind ASCII binary text characters. 2017's The Source proved Ayreon's most grandly conceived spectacle to date, in studio and on tour. The enormous cast of the musical-theater-meets-progressive-metal production asserted a relatively straightforward sci-fi profile, though its labyrinthine concept narrated an actual prequel to 01011001 -- some of the songs included lyrics that were sung in binary code. 2000's Universal Migrator was another double-disc set, its volumes were issued separately under the subtitles Part I: The Dream Sequencer and Part II: Flight of the Migrator. The guest vocal spots included Tiamat's Johan Edlund and Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, alongside current and former members of Gamma Ray, Primal Fear, Helloween, Stratovarius, and Symphony X; musicians included Rocket Scientist's Erik Norlander and ex-Gorefest drummer Ed Warby. Released in 2004, The Human Equation traded sci-fi for medical drama, taking place in the mind of a coma patient recovering from a car crash. It featured the usual slew of guests, including Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt, Devin Townsend, and Dream Theater's James LaBrie. The ambitious, tech-heavy 01011001 arrived in 2008 and featured 17 different lead vocalists -- more than any other Ayreon album to date -- and brought to a close much of the narrative mythology that had begun with 1995's The Final Experiment. Lucassen returned in 2013 with a new work, The Theory of Everything, inspired by the films A Beautiful Mind and Rain Man. Theater Equation, a concert album/DVD featuring cast, choir, and a small orchestra delivering a rousing performance of Human Equation, followed in 2016. A year later, Ayreon's ninth studio long-player The Source served as a conceptual prequel to 01011001. In 2018, Lucassen issued Ayreon Universe, a massive best-of concert celebration of the Ayreon catalog that was filmed in the Netherlands the year prior. In March 2020, Ayreon released the double disc/Blu-ray Electric Castle Live and Other Tales. During the fall of the previous year, Lucassen booked a theater in Tilburg for four nights to perform the rock opera Into the Electric Castle complete with mise en scène. He was able to re-recruit the original singers from the studio album including Anneke van Giersbergen, Fish, Damian Wilson, and Edward Reekers. In September, Ayreon returned with the studio album Transitus. Its nearly Shakespearean plot is set on the estate of a 19th century aristocratic patriarch (Dee Snider), and its story line revolves around the forbidden love affair between his son Daniel and the servant girl Abby. As the tale sprawled across time and space, Lucassen included a host of supernatural characters as well. The project's narrator was Tom Baker of Dr. Who fame. In September 2023, Ayreon sold out five performances at Netherlands' Poppodium 013 in Tilburg. The assembled band performed the 2008 concept album 01011001 in its entirety, followed by encores. Lucassen and keyboardist Joost van den Broek assembled a remarkable lineup featuring many cast members from the 01011001 studio album, as well as instrumentalists Warby (drums), Johan van Stratum (bass), Timo Somers and Marcel Coenen (guitars), and others. The album, titled 01011001: Live Beneath the Waves, documented the largest cast in Ayreon's live history. It appeared in 2024.
© Steve Huey /TiVo
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20 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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