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...?" :)
