Customer Reviews

Final Experiment (Spec)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Final Experiment is Arjen Lucassen's debut release with his unique project, Ayreon, and this special edition is the reissue of a once-terribly overlooked first album. Despite the relatively unknown musicians on it, this record was by far my favourite Ayreon release. With each passing year, Arjen continued to put out great albums with some of the most important figures in rock and metal, but to me, The Final Experiment was unmatchable. However, in 2004, when Arjen released his latest album, The Human Equation, this masterpiece was surpassed, but still remains an all-time favourite, heads and shoulders above most other prog releases.

The sound quality and remixed parts on this reissue sound a lot better. Not that there's anything wrong with the original release, but on this CD, the dynamics are stronger and livelier. Peter Vink's bass and Ernst van Ee's drums are stunning, thanks to the crisp and sparse mix. The vocals are placed carefully over delicate song arrangements, allowing each instrument to come through.

The Final Experiment, as unusual as it was in 1995, is a concept album, which, in my opinion, must have been the reason why all the record labels turned Arjen down when he was looking for an outlet to release his music. In the booklet, Arjen has ironically printed the emails he got from the labels and record executives who refused to release this disc, claiming there was no market for this kind of music. Some of those people must be really ashamed now. Anyway, this is a concept record, about a single character named "Ayreon", and the whole story evolves around him (sort of like The Who's Tommy). The year is 2084 (exactly 100 years after George Orwell's 1984) and scientists have developed this program in order to save the world from its downfall. They manage to send signals back in time, which are received by a blind medieval minstrel, who has these visions from the future and takes on a mission to save mankind from its tragic fate. Folk elements are successfully used to portray the medieval times, whilst occasional electronics represent the future. Needless to say, there is a very clever storyline, with a strong lyrical message to deliver, and on top of all, fantastic musicianship, especially for a debut album.

The album is very diverse musically. At over 70 minutes, epic rock of bands like Queen and Rainbow, atmospheric sounds of Pink Floyd, folk stuff of Led Zeppelin, vocal harmonies of the Beatles, 70's prog of ELP and Yes are all blended in Arjen Lucassen's creative songwriting. In a way, Arjen is paying tribute to his heroes, while at the same time attempting to create something unique. The album starts with a spoken voice setting the tone of the concept, quickly giving way to an acoustic guitar-led progressive track featuring a magnificent keyboard solo that is right on the same musical path with ELP. More overlapping keyboard solos in the vein of Rick Wakeman are displayed on the following track, "Eyes of Time". Peter Vink's bass tone is simply astounding here -- a great improvement over the original version.

The 11-minute epic, "The Banishment", is one of the finest songs on this album. It melts folk music, symphonic rock and opaque acoustics into a progressive metal masterpiece. Robert Soeterboek's vocals are followed by brutal death vocals sung by Jan-Chris De Koeijer. Other songs such as "Sail Away to Avalon" and "Game Over" (with Ian Parry singing) are haunting with their catchy choruses and vocal harmonies. Besides playing all guitars, keys, lots of bass, Arjen also sings lead vocals on several songs, and he does a great job. However, my favourite singer on this album is Leon Goewie. "Merlin's Will" gives me goosebumps! What a voice. It leaves me breathless every time. Finally, almost all singers appear on the final track, "Ayreon's Fate", which is one of the most emotional songs ever. Once again, Leon Goewie proves to be a totally mindblowing vocalist on this one. Arjen Lucassen plays some great guitar solos through the album; "Waracle" is fantastic with some flute in the background, as is "The Awareness" with an erupting guitar solo..

There's a 37-minute bonus disc with great singers including Astrid van der Veen from Arjen's Ambeon project, Marcela Bovio and Irene Jansen from the godly album The Human Equation, and some others. Most of the music for these songs are played and recorded from scratch, therefore making it more interesting. The packaging is neat; the booklet is enhanced and has detailed song analysis from Arjen Lucassen, extra pictures, lyrics, etc. In short, two amazing CDs for the price of one. If you're a prog fan, you shouldn't miss this, i.e. one of the finest prog debuts ever.

Yep. Ayreon's the Final Experiment is those things...and more!

The Final Experiment is a concept album that tells the tale of a blind minstrel who is receiving visions of apocalyptic doom from the future. The music is epic, progressive and medieval in sound and style. Arjen Anthony Lucassen, the man behind Ayreon, uses a wide variety of vocalists and other musicians to tell this story. Whether it is the medieval and bombastic "Sail Away to Avalon", the quiet and introspective "Ye Courtyard Minstrel Boy" or the powerful "Merlin's Will", the Final Experiment delivers on many levels. There is something for everyone on this cd -- especially for you keyboard lovers. If you like a variety of bands such as Savatage, Pink Floyd and Blind Guardian, you will probably love the Final Experiment.

Final Experiment is a kind of predecessor to "Into the Electric Castle". It is in a way a "light version" in the sense, that this is only one CD instead of two, and that here are not so many prominent artists playing aroud. Beside this, there are no differences, and no flaws. A concept album (the story is okay for me) with very complex and tasteful arrangements. All instruments and the vocals are excellent. Giant, epic, powerful, somethimes slightly gothic touched, interwoven in great diversity with much variety (trumpets etc.). But luckily for me there is never bad "metal" feeling, but it keeps with melodic (hard-) rock. In my feeling it is as catchy and easy flowing as a combination of Boston, Meat Loaf, Arena, Pendragon and Trans Siberian Orchestra. Endless guitar and keyboardlayers with dense, busy and tasteful drumming, and sometimes slow ballads. For lovers of tight, pulsing Rock who insist on getting tons of creative ideas and arrangements, I think, this one should be pure joy to listen to! If you like this, you should surely get the extraordinary "Into the Electric Castle" also. But anyway, you should not ignore Final Experimant. For me, Final Experiment is the prelude to Electric Castle, delivering nearly the same fun and joy. So I suggest, you check it out, perhaps it works for you also.

Arjen's first work was his Final Experiment to get himself a record deal, well that was a very good Experiment, and I just love the concept and the music. The lyrics are not, but some people say it is, cheesy at all!!! He wrote a story and made the music to that tale. It is not cheesy, but Arjen's just very talented in writing sci-fi stories. You might not like the story, but that's your problem!

The story is about the earth in the year 2084 when mankind has almost destroyed itself. But scientists made a Final Experiment, time telepathy, and they sent visions of humanity's decline back in time. Ayreon, a blind minstrel in the dark ages, receives these visions and his task is to warn the world of it's impending downfall. Unfortunately, Merlin doesn't trust him and orders the knights to kill him.

The music is very good. It's a Progressive Rock Opera, and the music is unbelievable good, although I think that Arjen's later works contain more spirit and emotion than this one, it's still great. The combination of keyboards together with electric guitars is just wonderful and that makes Ayreon into one of my favorites.

I recommend this album very highly to all Ayreon fans, progressive rock fans and pop fans. If you are new to Ayreon, you might like this album a lot.
Keep On Rocking!!!!!!!!!

This was before Arjen managed to release some of his bigger hits, so he didn't have much of a budjet, and the people who came for him in Electric Castle and Human Equation he didn't have..so he had to work with some less famous people.

The storyline, though some people may say is cheesy, is actually very well written. Especially if reading the lyrics while listening to the album, it can be a fantastic experience. The songwriting is great, the storyline is great, the vocals are very good, and instrumentally, the music is very advanced. Though in my opinion, this album is not to the level of Arjen's later works, it is certainly a great album.

Ayreon albums are the dietary equivalent of a 3 tier wedding cake! They are rich, elaborate productions. Nothing small scale to be seen. Nothing is done without the prescision of a lense grinder. They are intense celebrations of progressive rock, jazz fusion, and metal genres with sprinklings of symphonic arrangements, musical theatre, sci-fi drama and classical embelishments. I admire Arjen for his obvious passion and ability to put his heart into EVERY recording / package of art he releases.

The downside being Arjen's work can take months of listening to fully appreciate. His lyrics also skate the razor's edge of "geek-ish". Some of his lyrics are so "Dungeons and Dragons" that they de-tract from the serious genius of the music. I do enjoy all of the Ayreon albums and I like to play them on headphones to relax after a stressed out day. I can't say I follow the plot-lines and stories like a cult movie fanatic, but I enjoy the fact that I can always revisit them and find an abundance of new things to listen for.

I chose to review "The Final Experiment" because I've played this one the most of the three or four that I own. It also has some really interesting use of horns and classical instrumentation which strikes a nerve in my appreciation of electric jazz / fusion / classical music. There are some early 80's Chick Correa albums with "fantasy" themes that come to mind(one called the Leprauchan?) I sort of draw a modern parallel with Arjen to those dreamy jazz records of that era, of which many listeners thought were "geek-ish" at the time. I was a bit suprised to learn that The Final Experiment was Arjen's first project! It is unbelieveably professional.

I like the Aryeon concept and I do think it's one of the most interesting listens available. Having said that however, I would not play this for my girlfriend!

for a first album, this isn't great, but shows many of the elements that will eventually be melded into some great music on later albums. There are some very interesting songs though, many of them in an acoustic style, some with multiple vocalists on each song, and of course, Ayreon's overall concept story that marks most of his cds. I would say that on this album, he hasn't completely matured as a composer yet, and it shows on many of the songs. I would probably list this as fourth of his five albums in ranking, one above Flight of the Migrator. Get Dream Sequencer & Electric Castle, (or even Actual Fantasy first)

Ayreon is a genius. Soaring synthesizer work, tasty guitars and everything in between is just perfectly produced and performed. I can't recommend this album highly enough. And everything else he's done also. I bought this here because I did not find it on iTunes at the time.

I can believe how hard was for Arjen to release this album. I am pretty sure that many of the people who rejected this work is now selling hot dogs!.
This being the first album of Ayreon is JUST AMAZING, probably to advanced by the time of release.
The edition I got sounds very good, and I love the mix of voices and midevo cord instruments.
I really recommend this album.

Tittus

I think my title basically says it all, but I have to say that I absolutely love this album. I'm perfectly okay with the way the story is told, and while some people may call it cheesy at times I don't think it is, there's something about the storyline that hooked me immediately, and after listening to the album about 5 times I still can't necessarily place it but that's okay.

On the musical side of things, the musicianship on display in this album is something that I find quite cool. It's pretty obvious that everybody that Arjen handpicks for his albums has talent. I especially enjoy the orchestrations and keyboards.

I also quite enjoy the elaborate "Rock Opera" style of the album with multiple vocalists. As I stated earlier I'm a long time T.S.O. fan so multi-vocalist "Rock Opera's" are in my normal listening repitore, one of my all time favorites being Beethoven's Last Night, which is at times can be just about as bombastic as this story.

I would recommend this album and the others by this band to fans of T.S.O., and others that enjoy a fun sci-fi storyline and don't mind spending some time with these records in a heartbeat. Believe me when I say that they will grow on you.