| The Final Experiment | 1995 |
| Actual Fantasy | 1996 |
| Into The Electric Castle | 1998 |
| The Dream Sequencer | 2000 |
| Flight Of The Migrator | 2000 |
| Ayreonauts Only | 2001 |
| The Human Equation | 2004 |
Ayreon isn't actually a band, but actually an elaborate project from Dutch songwriter Arjen Anthony Lucassen, a project which happens to churn out huge, immaculately produced concept albums that often have a futuristic twist to them. Not only do these releases feature a lot of instrumentation and production, but they frequently play out like Broadway cast recordings or something, as Lucassen often employs several guest vocalists on his more 'rock opera' oriented efforts to sing the parts of each character (some of them very well-known - not so much on the first two albums, but then you get people like Anneke Van Giersbergen, Bruce Dickinson, Lana Lane, and Fish coming in that generate some publicity within the metal and art rock crowds). This kind of dynamic often leads to very thrilling experiences and emotional climaxes within the music, and it's really hard to find flaws in the professionally layered production.
That being said, with a few noticeable exceptions, I'm not really that huge a fan of this type of sound Ayreon produce or anything, as much as I respect it greatly. For one thing, these albums very often fall victim to a lot of the power/progressive/symphonic metal cliches that I don't really care for in this type of music (overblown singing, silly high school-level 'twists' in the structure of the concepts, segues to make songs seem more important than they are, playing technical for the sake of being complex, etc.), plus they can also be a bit too sluggish and overly 'atmospheric' for my tastes (particularly on the Universal Migrator albums). Thankfully, though, for all their shortcomings, Ayreon albums are usually more well-made, varied and interesting than a lot of their counterparts, and that definitely says something.
Oh, I should also mention that after the 'different versions of older songs' album Ayreonauts Only, Lucassen also got involved in a couple of other projects (Star One's Space Metal, which is essentially interchangeable from any Ayreon album, and a more band-oriented outfit Ambeon that I haven't heard), but the focus here is on the stuff he did with Ayreon, the albums which await.
--Nick Karn
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: The Banishment, Eyes Of Time, Nature's Dance. LOW POINTS: Waracle, Computer-reign (Game Over).
In many ways, The Final Experiment is actually the definitive Ayreon album - it's already got the layered, huge production sound going on in abundance, the multiple vocalists thing (none in particular that I've heard of on this album, though a couple of them do sound like familiar singers I know - more on that later), probably the most understandably flowing concept and arrangements, and plus within the first half, you'll probably find Ayreon's best stretch of songs ever. Into The Electric Castle might have slightly higher peaks and more consistency as a whole, but even though that one tends to be (deservedly) the most celebrated, I actually can't find too much about Electric Castle's style that isn't covered here - it's just got a more prominent number of guest vocalists and songs. Seeing as its' Arjen's first stab at the Ayreon sound, it might also sound the least tired as well.
I should probably talk about the actual concept of this album now - it revolves around a blind minstrel in 6th century Britain named Ayreon (ha, naming this project after the first concept album's main character is a neat touch) accidentally sent visions of humanity's decline in 2084 via 'the final experiment', and his attempts to warn the villagers of this bleakness, with the wizard Merlin intervening in the process (to potentially disasterous results). Yeah, there's definitely somewhat of a dumb sci-fi cheese to the whole thing, and the album really wears a bit thin on me in the second half, but there are also quite a few instances where the arrangements, production and overall flow of the storyline really work, and it also benefits from a touch of interesting variety - not just your average bombastic power/prog metal or sci-fi atmospheres, but also acoustic medieval-sounding balladry and symphonic embellishments as well. Good stuff.
But anyway, let's talk about the kickass first half now. I'm not too crazy that one of the main musical themes here is a generic 'celebratory' synth-trumpet melody, and it does get a little too overblown in places, but those are about the only noticeable complaints I can find. There's "The Awareness", with its' acoustic parts building up into a big, bombastic and slow 'spacey' atmosphere, as well as that catchy 'the smoke is rising...' chant - a very quintessential Ayreon track, I must say. "Eyes Of Time" is basically Ayreon the character warning the villagers about his visions and all that kind of stuff in awesome 'call and response' symphonic metal bombast ('tell me what you feeeeel...' 'I wouldn't know how, I cannot free my miiiiind....') It's really, really catchy, especially with that odd high-register lead vocal delivery, and that spoken part where Ayreon tries to understand his powers is a climactic moment ('does it mean... I'm a God...').
My favorite track, though, is appropriately enough the longest of the album - the 11 minute epic "The Banishment", with a buildup to die for in its' of orchestration and slow-building guitar layerings. It's also probably the most melodic and gripping song on here as well, and I get quite a bit of humor out of it, because David Coverdale is apparently an outspoken villager! Ha! Or at least that's who the main vocalist here sounds exactly like. Wow. Also contributing to this song's classic status, though, is a fantastic ending jam. Prog-metal city! Follow that with the very medieval sounding melodies and instrumentation (flute and all) of "Ye Courtyard Minstrel Boy", the booming 'tale of the sea' singalong number "Sail Away To Avalon", and the gorgeous 'relaxing in the forest' ballad "Nature's Dance" (where Ayreon longs for sight but accepts his fate anyway - did Stevie Wonder ever even sing about his blindness in such a direct way?), and The Final Experiment suddenly has the makings of an excellent album.
Unfortunately, that potential is never fulfilled in the somewhat boring second half, causing me to drop the rating a bit. Ayreon starts preaching about stuff that contributes to humanity's decline, and that's also not coincidentally where the album begins to decline, whether the theme is technology (the really stupid sci-fi themed "Computer-reign (Game Over)"), war (the slow, endless "Waracle") or pollution (the decent arena rocker "Listen To The Waves"). It certainly isn't a total wasteland of an album half, as there's a nice harmony workout in "Charm Of The Seer" and a nice instrumental in "Swan Song", plus you get to hear that Merlin is in fact Axl Rose (there I go with associating these characters with familiar vocalists again) and within the cold, dramatic closer "Ayreon's Fate", the outcome of the final experiment gets placed in your hands. But there's still very little all that great in the second half - damn these uneven 70 minute metal concept albums to hell! Very nice first half, though.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Beyond The Last Horizon. LOW POINTS: Back On Planet Earth.
If any album in the Ayreon catalog can come close to an actual song-oriented collection as opposed to all the material connected under one concept, I suppose this one would be it. Of course, there probably is some sort of concept here, but there's not this big overhead voice briefly summarizing the details of the plot every few songs, and there doesn't seem to be huge chaotic things going wrong with the planet, like existence actually being threatened or something. Plus, it's only 54 minutes long, so that should be some cause for alert. I've also heard this album described as 'heavy Pink Floyd', which there might be something to, if one or two note metal riffs repeated over and over and augmented by 'spacey' embellishments (or jangly guitar lines ala "Hey You") are your ideal for what Floyd should sound like. Okay, only a few songs on here actually fit those descriptions, but still....
However, disregarding the Floyd elements on here for a moment, this is a step down from The Final Experiment, not because the material's more inconsistent, but because it's just consistently there. Nothing that jumps out as convincingly epic as "The Banishment", or as dull as "Waracle". There are a couple songs that I have to strain to remember how they go at all, like the ho-hum "Far Side Of The World", or anything about the closer "Forevermore" outside of its' coda (a rich mix of keyboard layerings, and is that a banjo I hear in there?? Neat movie score ending, too). Plus, "Back On Planet Earth" mostly just thuds along in a directionless haze with its' unmemorable melodies, repetitive sci-fi synth patterns and unremarkable stretches of jamming for around 7 minutes or so. Not what I'm looking for out of Ayreon's 'space travel' atmospheres at all.
Outside of that song, there's nothing really that weak on here, as even the songs that fit my 'one or two note metal riffs repeated over and over with space embellishments' descriptions are fairly catchy (the single "The Stranger From Within" with its' occasionally cool synth tones, and "Computer Eyes", if you can forgive the fact that its' buildup sounds straight out of A Momentary Lapse Of Reason), but I just don't get much inspiration out of them considering they're 7 minutes of the same thing. Hey, why are almost all the songs over 7 minutes, anyway? "Abbey Of Synn" works fairly well as a defiantly slow landscape of dark bubbly keyboards, grinding riffage, chanting and vocal harmonies, but it just doesn't quite make it as a 9:34 epic considering how sluggish it is.
At least there's one song on here that's captivating almost the entire way through, though, and that would be "Beyond The Last Horizon", pretty much the best example of the sort of style attempted here. It's got another really, really cool buildup with excellent use of those little space effects that Arjen seems to favor, plus the jangling guitar line is definitely the most ear-catching thing on here, and the hard-hitting, numbing pulse of the verses, when coupled with the nice poppy chorus melody, really works despite its' repetitive simplicity. Oh yeah, and the title track is cool, too, a minute and a half soundtrack-ish buildup song that has a neat eerie melody while it's on. All in all, though, while Actual Fantasy is still decent, it just doesn't have as much of the songwriting quality that allows me to fully appreciate Ayreon's professional production as the surrounding efforts do. Those two are more recommended.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Amazing Flight, Tower Of Hope, The Decision Tree (We're Alive), Across The Rainbow Bridge, The Castle Hall. LOW POINTS: "Forever" Of The Stars.
Now this is more like it. I guess if you're going to experience Ayreon, you might as well go all-out, and Into The Electric Castle gives you just that opportunity. This time out, Arjen dives headfirst into total 'space' rock opera mode, assembling a large cast of singers for each character in the story and a roundtable of excellent musicians around him, resulting in what's definitely the best musicianship and production of any Ayreon album, and those albums were already pretty strong in that area to begin with. Great keyboard and guitar sounds abound here, with a lot of neat melodies and embellishments going on in each song. Oh, and I should also mention this is a long double album - over 100 minutes - and while probably overlong, it actually manages to stay consistently interesting and even really good for that amount of time, with peaks as awesome as you'll get from Ayreon. Which makes it their best, of course.
The overall concept here sounds a bit stupid on paper - eight people from various points in history come together in some sort of dimension to face the challenges of the Electric Castle (I know I'm stupid, but my mind can't help but think of something like this as a cross between the operatic flow of Jesus Christ Superstar and the 'excitement' of MTV's Real World series - 'eight strangers... picked to live in a dimension'), but I guess the results of this album prove that any concept, no matter how dumb, can work in the right hands. Of course, this is slightly overrated in the prog-metal community, but hey, I think it deserves a good portion of the acclaim, simply because the excellent melodies and arrangements are what really get my attention, not how well the concept is carried out. I stop noticing that aspect somewhere around the initial half of disc two, while the melodies still stick with me, and there are several of them I've been discovering lately that kinda passed me by the first couple times.
As far as the actual songs go, disc one is definitely the more long-winded and 'progressive' portion of the album - following the combination introductory spoken word / 'dramatic' instrumental opener "Welcome To The New Dimension", we get two songs that go over 10 minutes. In the dynamic "Isis And Osiris", we also get a taste of the considerable talent between the vocalists and instrumentalists assembled here. The haunting acoustic background coupled with neat spacey synths (including a few solos between them), and the vocal tradeoffs on (The Highlander) Fish's 'verses' and (The Indian) Sharon den Adel's ghostly sounding 'chorus', plus some great harmony singing and metal-oriented passages, is a treat for all of its' length.
Towering over that one, however, is "Amazing Flight", not only the pinnacle of the album, but also my favorite Ayreon song of all time. There are so many things to love here, from that fantastic Deep Purple-ish slow organ groove, really passionate sounding vocals in the verses from Jay van Feggelen (The Barbarian), Arjen himself chiming in on the chorus as The Hippie in one of the coolest and most disorienting speaker-shifting vocal effects ever (this portion convinces me that he could have held his own as the lead vocalist for Ayreon in his own right had he chosen to go that way), more excellent Sharon den Adel vocals on the chilling atmospheric middle, and some of the most awesome prog metal jamming I've heard in a while in the final third of the song (the way the soloing between the guitar, flute and piano interact together is damn great).
The remainder of the disc finds our characters journeying to the Electric Castle, beginning with the eerie acoustic guitar/synth ballad "Time Beyond Time" (with bombastic guitar breaks thrown in there). Along the way, the 'party' finds that one of them must depart by the orders of "The Decision Tree" over an uplifting and incredibly catchy interacting theme between acoustic guitar and keyboard lines, a huge 'WE'RE ALIIIIIIVE' harmony chorus, and a captivating 'duet' of sorts between Fish The Highlander and van Feggelen The Barbarian. Then we get the gorgeously chiming "Tunnel Of Light" (another really catchy acoustic-based song, with some gorgeous singing from The Egyptian Anneke van Giersbergen, and the final appearance of The Highlander) and the fantastic "Across The Rainbow Bridge", which seamlessly shifts from cold sounding guitar layers to a full-on metal singalong number. Plus I love the thundering gallop of the bridge portion sung by Arjen The Hippie, and the final 'RUN RUN... THE PAST IS GONE... IT CANNOT BE UNDONE' hook is one of the best in the Ayreon discography. Killer disc closer!
Like I said, by the second disc, I start to become lot less interested in the actual concept, and not as many of the songs stand out for me either. Disc two is still very good, don't get me wrong, but it does pull the rating down slightly from the 8.5 or maybe low 9 I'd give the first disc. Nevertheless, there are some really cool songs here as well. "The Castle Hall" is so goofily pretentious with its' slow and 'ominous' dark keyboards and low register vocals that it's hard not to love it, especially since it's really damn infectious. Additionally, the lightning fast bursts of Yes-ish keyboards that dominate the background of "Tower Of Hope" are just awesome, and the melodic build of the rest is simply towering, making it a close second to "Amazing Flight" as the best on here. There are other captivating moments, too, like the moody chorus of "Evil Devolution", the odd keyboard line and gorgeous majesty of "Another Time, Another Space", and the cool organ groove and metal singalong goodness of "The Two Gates".
Come to think of it, except for "Forever Of The Stars" (which really rubs me the wrong way with its' awful robotic spoken word vocal nonsense and its' dumb sci-fi atmosphere), everything on disc two is good - it's just that I get a bit tired halfway through the disc given the entire length of the album, so maybe it's possible these songs aren't any weaker. There's the Renaissance flavor of "Valley Of The Queens", plus the neat dynamics of "The Garden Of Emotions" (more of those cool keyboard sounds on display, as well as more fantastic van Giersbergen The Egyptian vocals) and "Cosmic Fusion" - subdued balladry in the first half crossed with 'evil' death metal bombast, surf guitar and more cool prog metal jamming! This stuff is good! God, there's too much to write about this album, so I'd better stop now. A well-executed project this is, and a very solid 8. The experience can occasionally get a bit cheesy and uncomfortably overblown, but the creativity and musicianship on display here more than overcomes that.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Temple Of The Cat, My House On Mars. LOW POINTS: None.
Surprisingly enough, Arjen obviously had enough musical inspiration left in him to make another double album even longer than Into The Electric Castle, but maybe realizing that most listeners can only take so much of this stuff at a time, he split his current concept into two separate albums under the Universal Migrator title and released both of them on the same day. The concept here actually seems to be a continuation of The Final Experiment, a hundred years after war has destroyed all life on Earth in the year 2084 (correctly predicted by Ayreon). After almost all colonists settling on Mars have died, the main focus is eventually down to one last surviving member, who relives his past lives through hypnosis via a machine called The Dream Sequencer, and the songs basically center on the various time periods he has been through. Geez, you think someone involved in the making of this album was obsessed with sci-fi?
Once again, though, the music and melodies are more important, but man, could the overall tempo on this album possibly be any slower? Not to mention that the Pink Floyd overtones hinted at on Actual Fantasy come at us full force on the first half, as quite a few moments almost seem like a Floyd tribute band (case in point - the more modernized ripoff of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" that is the opening title track). I must give Arjen and the gang credit, though - they do the dark Floyd style of the first half very well. They've got down the incredibly lethargic tempos running over 7 or 8 minutes, the nearly Final Cut-level (though not quality, of course) depressing subject matter, the really neat use of keyboard textures and Gilmour-esque guitar to provide the atmosphere, and so on. If the cold tone of the vocals and soul-crushing lethargy of "My House On Mars" doesn't get to you (especially at the bridge with that despair filled synth-horn part over lyrics like 'I'll never feel the burning sun, I'll never meet my chosen one'), then, well, I guess that's too bad.
Although the really slow pace continues on from this point, at least the concept goes time traveling to points where, you know, humans actually existed prominently. Well, not so much on "2084" - over more bleak keyboards and guitar textures, we discover that our main character once lived as a woman (sung by Lana Lane) who died during the 'wipeout of civilization' war at that time. Is it a coincidence that this comes 100 years after Orwell's 1984? I think not! But on the bombastic and again, slow, "One Small Step" comes the perspective of one of the guys who landed on the moon (that is, if you don't believe the conspiracy theory that we didn't actually go there, which there might be something to). Plus, on "The Shooting Company Of Captain Frans B. Cocq", vocals exactly like John Lennon circa Sgt. Pepper (from some guy named Mouse) take center stage, bubbly keyboards and Floydian arrangements combine with references to 17th Rembrandt paintings, and once more, things are slow, slow, SLOW and not always amazingly memorable, but it still works.
I guess on the second half, the story takes place far back enough in time that it's not all cold, spacey and depressing, because that style isn't as prominent. Of course, the songs are still below midtempo (did anybody during these sessions have energy in them?), but at least they stylistically shift away from morose space rock. "Dragon Of The Sea" gives off pretty much the same aura you'd expect a song where the main character watches a fleet of ships from the shores of England to sound like, with nice acoustic guitar, ominous synths and majestic vocals from Lana Lane again, and the 'Mayan girl' ballad "Temple Of The Cat" has exquisite orchestral subtleties going on in the mix, with lead vocals from Jacqueline Govaert in the Gathering/Within Temptation vein (which will definitely help any song rise to beautiful heights)! Isn't that melody just gorgeous? Best song on here, if you ask me.
Moving on, within "Carried By The Wind" comes an interesting plot twist - seeing as The Dream Sequencer has headed to the 6th century, Arjen sings the lead of none other than.... Ayreon, the blind minstrel reflecting on the chaos of the future over another good set of melodies. Then we're hastily transported to the construction of Stonehenge on "And The Druids Turn To Stone" (a construction which I blame for setting in motion the aural disaster complete with eye-damaging album cover that is Black Sabbath's Born Again!), and afterwards, going waaaaaay back, there's Neal Morse singing from the point of view of "The First Man On Earth" (though how he'd actually express himself by singing about it is beyond me, I say in a very sarcastic 'making fun of Arjen's little concepts' mood).
Finally, closing the album is the instrumental "The Dream Sequencer Reprise" with more Fl--- hey, wait a minute.... is this damn album structured like Wish You Were Here? Ha, probably. Geez, I don't know how this guy got away with creating 70 minutes of snail-paced 'space rock' with lyrics that even most 7th graders would probably laugh at, and make a good consistent album out of it to boot (there's not one bad or even really weak song on here, unlike any previous Ayreon effort, and I just love the two highlights), but he did. Sure, there's not nearly as many great melodies, cool arrangements or all that kind of stuff as Electric Castle, and sometimes the Floyd emulations get a little excessive, plus, there's that lack of variety in tempo, but what are you expecting? A perfect Ayreon masterpiece that pounds all Beatles albums into the ground?
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Chaos. LOW POINTS: Into The Black Hole.
Call me a hypocrite if you will - considering I kept complaining about how slow The Dream Sequencer was, it might seem weird that I have a really hard time liking this much more energetic album anywhere near as much, but I can't help it. Like any other Ayreon album released before (or on the same day), Flight Of The Migrator is very well made, produced and layered stuff, with the same brand of multiple vocalists, keyboard and guitar sounds, but for whatever reason, this time around most of the songs and melodies here do almost nothing for me. Maybe it's because the Ayreon sound is beginning to wear thin, or maybe it's because it's more power metal-influenced (with a lot of technical wanking and the 'lyrics over everything else' mentality probably a bit more pronounced), but whatever it is, I can't say I agree with fans or those underground metal review sites who surprisingly rate this really highly. I must be missing something.
As far as the concept this time around goes, it's really not very interesting - it chronicles the same Mars colonist going back to the very beginning of the universe and traveling through quasars, black holes and stuff like that. Yawn. Of course, the plus side of this is that, as opposed to the cold and somber slow atmosphere on Mars during The Dream Sequencer, the more 'action packed' nature of this concept rubs off on some of the music as well. This is particularly true of the opening "Chaos" - following its' mandatory spoken word intro, it goes off into a slightly generic, but very powerful burst of thrash metal jamming where all these great solos and extremely catchy riffs pop up, and there's some really neat-sounding keyboard breaks. While not quite as worthy as other highlights on previous albums, it still stands out over anything else here, and the music portions rank as some of the most worthy instrumental moments you'll find on an Ayreon album.
The remainder of the songs, while not bad, just don't seem that inspired to me at all. Out of the rest, I probably like "Dawn Of A Million Souls" most, since it's definitely a well-written and nicely arranged art rock composition with a memorable opening organ line, sweeping symphonic tinges that come to a climax in the middle in building up to a good jam section, and catchy melodies (I particularly like the 'WHAT A SHOW!!!' chants during the chorus), though it's not really great at what it does, and plus, it's got Russell Allen on vocals, who's pretty much one of my prototypes for a soulless power metal singer, so it doesn't have much emotional impact for me. "Out Of The White Hole" has that cool organ groove going for it, "Journey On The Waves Of Time" has that tricky synth-horn riff and odd vocal delivery, and "To The Solar System" has a moody 'I'm reaching out... to the planet of bluuuuuueeee...' refrain, though passing memorable hooks aren't exactly going to turn these into particularly good songs (especially since these things are all that's interesting about 'em).
Elsewhere, "To The Quasar" and "Through The Wormhole" continue to seem like well-played and arranged epic bores to me. They're dynamic, sure - I like the former's guitar textures and occasional crunch, plus the way the latter at heart sounds like a typical fast rocker of someone like Joe Satriani or Steve Vai or somebody is kind of cool, but the melodies and individual sections just don't grab me much apart from those scattered neat moments. Oh, and I know I'm supposed to love "Into The Black Hole" because it's a cold spacey epic where Bruce Dickinson guests to belt out lyrics over it, but it just drags - at 5 minutes it'd be alright, but surely not at 10, since it combines the slowness of The Dream Sequencer with a dull, lifeless melody and only occasional embellishments. No thanks. At least the closing "The New Migrator" is a mildly entertaining speed metal epic, thus making the bookend tracks fast and exciting, though that's only small consolation. I still give this a high 5 because it still displays a lot of professionalism and occasional neat ideas, plus it isn't really boring to listen to or anything, but it also doesn't move or interest me very much either.
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| Space Metal | 2002 |
| Live On Earth | 2003 |
Post your comments about Star One
released by Star One
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Set Your Controls. LOW POINTS: The Eye Of Ra.
Although it seems like the Ayreon project is no more, its' spirit is still very much alive within this particular album. At first, while listening to Space Metal, it's hard to understand why Arjen didn't consider it another Ayreon album, as it offers pretty much the same thing as those efforts, with more revolving musicians and all, like Dan Swano, Russell Allen, and the like. But Arjen's reasoning here is that it concentrates more on the energetic metal side of things (thus the album title), and it flows not as a continuous rock opera concept, but a thematic collection of songs inspired by... movies about space. You know, Star Wars and stuff like that. Needless to say, the lyrics here are much more a non-factor to me, though when the music and melodies don't seem as inspired, my mind is led to believe the gang is caring a little too much about the loose concept here, which can never be a good thing.
At least the songs on here are on the whole an improvement from Flight Of The Migrator, drifting more toward the melodic power metal direction than before, like Rainbow or Ronnie James Dio's solo career (a couple of the vocalists here very much evoke a Dio-like personality), only without much in the way of great guitar work like Ritchie Blackmore or Vivian Campbell. The thing is, though, this stuff is based either on the lyrics of the concept (which I could care less about) or the vocal hooks than on actual neat quirks in the arrangements, so it's quite a bit more difficult to figure out stuff to say about these songs. That isn't to say they aren't decent, especially "Set Your Controls", which kicks ass straight through, with equally impressive and entertaining verse/chorus hooks and played with good prog-metal firepower, and plus it's more of an introduction to the loose concept than anything else. We're entering the land of space movies, but we're not quite there yet!
Many of the others are more basic singalong workouts, like the especially standard "Master Of Darkness" (whose riff sounds disarmingly like "Dr. Feelgood") and "Intergalactic Space Crusaders" that are fun to listen to, but I could care less whether or not I hear them again. The best of these is probably "Songs Of The Ocean", mostly because the multiple hooks stick in my head the most ('there's nothing more, what can we do...', 'but we don't know the words to the songs of the ocean'). Of course, there's still some slow atmospheric stuff as well, like the dull "Into The Black Hole" retread "The Eye Of Ra" (though at least this one's only 7-1/2 minutes instead of 10) and the surprisingly effective, deathly mood of the 9 minute closer "Starchild" (love those low, booming vocals), which is contrasted nicely by acoustic verses, but those are the exceptions. All in all, a decent project that occasionally sounds tired and formulaic, and I'm really racking my brain for stuff to say about the remaining pop metal tunes, but for what it is, Space Metal is alright. Sorry I'm not more enthusiastic here, but I've heard way too many albums of this kind of 'what is there to say?' quality in my life. I guess huge fans of this style might love it, though.
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