Metal Underground.com

Ayreon's latest album is traditional prog metal blasted off into outer space, shaped by other worlds, and brought back to earth with shiny new things collected on the trip. A blend of traditional prog metal elements, many prog rock elements, folk elements, and the talents of a vast array of musicians make for one crazy progged-out journey. If you like your metal imbued with the great unknown of space and science fiction, "01011001" will play out for you like a good sci-fi novel.

Ayreon mastermind Arjen Lucassen, having already put out other epic prog metal concept albums such as "The Universal Migrator" and "The Human Equation," decided to weave the previous ones into a cohesive whole on "01011001." As the album unfolds avid Ayreon fans will find references to all the prior albums in the storyline. This album is split between two worlds on two discs: "Y" and "Earth." For you digital nerds, 01011001 is the binary code for "Y."

At the onset, with "Age of Shadows," the listener is thrown into the action on Planet Y, a machine-controlled world of the Forever, an alien species. Drums, synth, guitar, violin, and the voices of Tom Englund (Evergrey), Steve Lee (Gotthard), Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation), and others introduce this cold and distant planet and its longing inhabitants. The vocal talent to be found throughout the album is showcased here with full force and, unlike many progressive metal albums, actually survives throughout the duration of the album.

On "Comatose" Jorn Lande (Avantasia, Masterplan) and Anneke van Giersbergen (The Gathering, Agua de Annique) sing a tragic duet. On "The Age of Shadows," "Liquid Eternity," and "Beneath The Waves," Jonas Renkse (Katatonia, Bloodbath), Magali Luyten (Virus IV), Daniel Gildenlow, Hansi Kursch (Blind Guardian) and others share dramatic vocal dialogue about the future of the Forever. Other vocalists on the album are Simone Simons (Epica), Floor Jansen (After Forever), Bob Catley (Magnum), Ty Tabor (King’s X), Phideaux Xavier, Liselotte Hegt (Dial), Wudstik, and Marjan Welman (Elister). The vocal melodies are inspired, fitting with the storyline, and intense, although the storyline gets quite spacey.

Fans of traditional prog rejoice! The synth parts are many and they are phenomenally well produced without overpowering the vocals. Arjen, a fan of traditional Moog synthesizers and a guru of song construction, tastefully meshes warm synths with a cold metal rhythm section for much of the album. At parts the music recalls the acoustic-driven rock of Kansas. In other parts the music recalls Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. With this much variety it’s often hard for bands to maintain a cohesive sound. This is a rich sci-fi concept metal album with many faces and facets to it, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t pretty consistent.