So while over at Krystal's mom's house the other night, her mom stops us to show us videos she's found on Youtube. And as usual, we kind of sighed and rolled our eyes, then stopped our attempt to leave the house without watching the video.
To my surprise, it wasn't something crazy and completely ridiculous for once. It was a music video, and as soon as I heard the voice I recognized it.
It was James LaBrie that fronts Dream Theater.
I then looked at the information about the song that was on.
The song was called "Day 11: Love", by a group named Ayreon. The name sounded familiar. I think I saw it once on the Wikipedia page on LaBrie.
So then I sat down and listened to the song and watched the video, as Krystal's mom explained a little bit about the song. She then pointed out a part for me to pay attention to.
Oh snap.
Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth is singing on the song too?!
I was pretty much 300% interested in this Ayreon group immediately. However, at 1:30am, I was a little more interested in sleep than to run a search on Google about this group, so it had to wait.
Next day, during work, and my slacking off, I found out that Ayreon was actually a project by the man named Arjen Lucassen, whom was a pretty ingenious musician. His style comprised of progressive rock and heavy metal influences, and mixed them with traditional folk music.
Yeah.
How does it sound?
If this guy didn't write the music, I can see it being a complete train wreck and the album would be completely ridiculous, to the point of even silly. However, on this album, "The Human Equation", everything fits like a well designed puzzle, and the traditional folk music actually flows well with the heavy guitars and even the vocals.
Speaking of vocals, this is another forte of the album: there are 11 vocalists on the album.
Each vocalist represents a part of the story:
Me (main character represented by James LaBrie)
Fear (represented by Mikael Akerfeldt)
Best Friend (Arjen Lucassen)
Reason (Eric Clayton)
Love (Heather Findlay)
Pride (Magnus Ekwall)
Wife (Marcela Bovie)
Father (Mike Baker)
Passion (Irene Jansen)
Agony (Devon Graves)
Rage (Devin Townsend)
If you are into metal at all, you might recognize some of those names.
This album is amazing, not only from the musical point of view, but lyrically as well.
The album is a concept album, meaning that the entire album revolves around a concept. The concept usually is portrayed through a story, and thus, each song is a part of the story. One of the best examples, and to be frank, I consider it THE BEST concept albums of all time in the history of rock/metal music, would be the album named "Scenes from a Memory: Metropolis Pt. II" (we'll call it SFAM for short) by Dream Theater.
"The Human Equation" has a similar feel to SFAM, obviously with a different musical style and storyline.
The story within "The Human Equation" is about a man that has fallen into a coma, and the personal struggles, memories, and emotions he goes through within his mind, and also his best friend and wife's minds. Each song represents a day, and in each day, something different happens, and the songs take you on a journey through the story, the emotions, the struggles, and most importantly, through the story. Each song is a roller coaster ride through the different genres of music that intertwine with each other to form this unique sound that is Ayreon.
The album is an hour and forty-two minutes long, printed on two CDs.
I bought the limited edition version, which has a special cover, the two CDs, and a bonus DVD that has videos on the making of the album, interviews, and a music video for the song "Day 11: Love".
The ending of the story.....
Bah, I'm not telling :) You're going to find out on your own. However, I will say this much: the ending is interesting, and will make you go "hmm...?" :)
I always thought that it was our very own cpnichol who was in a metal band, and I think I've even made a few comments about death metal and stuff to him.
Well it turns out it was member castotroy that is the lead vocalist for a metal... well, hardcore'ish... I guess the "term" for it is "metalcore"... anyway, he is the lead vocalist for a metalcore band. Not cpnichol.
However, both of their names are Phil, and from the UK. So... me being a dumb American, assumed, that since it's "Phil from the UK", he must be the metal band guy.
Nope.
That's my "whooooooops" part.
I'm such an idiot sometimes...
So after been hooked on Gardenian for the last couple of weeks, and having listened to nothing but their "Sindustries" album for like, 2 weeks straight, I needed something else to listen to.
Well, what better place than to start from looking for music from the members of the band?
If there's 1 thing I learned about most of the European metal band members, it would be that they all like to be involved in more than just 1 band. 1 guy can be in as little as 1 main band and his/her own side project band, to be full time members of like 4 or 5 bands, all making quality music.
So, seeing as Niclas Engelin was the guitarist for Gardenian, I started to dig around to see what's up with Gardenian and Niclas.
Well, I guess Gardenian officially broke up in 2004, but Niclas had been involved with a few other bands, 1 of which was formed before Gardenian. Here are some of them:
Passenger - check them out at
their Myspace page.Engle - check them out at
their Myspace page.Within Y - check them out at
their Myspace page.Passenger is fronted by Anders Friden, the same guy that fronts In Flames. Within Y featured Thim Blom, the drummer for Gardenian back when they were still around, but had to quit the band as his wrists were bothering him too much (he had pains on his wrists) to perform at tip top shape. Engel features Niclas as the guitarist, along with some other big names in the Swedish Melodic Death Metal scene as well, but I will leave them out for now as this blog isn't about them.
Anyway, for you metal heads out there, check these guys out and see if you guys like them. I'm glad I've found them as I can now be distracted away from listening to Gardenian 24/7 lol
