Customer Reviews

Into the Electric Castle

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Sooner or later I had to get to Ayreon

Should any of my readers not know who Ayreon is, let me edify you. Ayreon is not a band, not really. Neither is Ambeon. Let me explain. Ayreon and Ambeon are projects, you might say alter egos of brilliant Dutch composer and musician, Arjen Anthony Luccassen.

You see, Arjen has borrowed one from the book of the ever successful recording broker, Alan Parsons. He composes a Rock Opera and then like the mice followed the Pied Piper into the river, several well known, at least to me, guest singers and musicians follow our piperish leader, Arjen, into the studio to record, this wonderful music.

Now Arjen hasn't used this successful formula once or twice. No he's made eight exciting albums this way, two of which are double albums. Mind you now, I understand there's a waiting list to be in Arjen's next production.
I can see why, it must be fun, mingling with other very talented people and making this remarkably interesting and different music. It's probably like, if I may regress to seventies terms, a "happening". And how different it is!

Into the Electric Castle, as do all of Arjen's projects, tells a story and in this case it is a science fiction story centered around eight strangers brought together into a dimension of no space and no time. It seems, if Luccassen ever decides to hang up his guitar he could make a living writing sci-fi.

Here is a summary of the story from Ayreon's Website:

"'Into the Electric Castle' tells the story of 8 stereotypical characters from different periods of time who suddenly find themselves in another dimension. A Highlander, Knight, Egyptian, Indian, Barbarian, Roman, Hippie and Futureman each try to understand where they are and what they are supposed to do. It is then that a voice rings out from the sky to tell them that the dimension they have arrived in is built on dreams and fears. In order to find their way back to their own dimension and time, they must go in search of The Electric Castle. During the search every character is forced to confront his or her innermost fears, and not everyone survives the treacherous journey to the Castle."

"At the end of the journey those that successfully dealt with their personal demons find out that the voice belongs to an alien named 'Forever of the Stars', a member of an alien race living in a distant galaxy. These aliens created planet Earth and its people as an experiment so they could study, and hopefully one day experience emotions, as they themselves lost feelings eons ago."

"'Into the Electric Castle' is a double CD. On disc 1 we experience the journey to The Electric Castle and on disc 2 we find out what happens when they arrive there."

Haven't I read something by Stephen King like that. Yeah, I know, the plot is pretty ch-e-e-ze ball but honestly the music is fabulous, here are some highlights:

"Isis and Osiris" is an eleven minute multi-part song.

"Let the Journey Begin" is the first part with Highlander and Indian singing in what is an ethereal, almost Moody Blues part. "The halls of Isis and Osiris" is sung by Roman and Egyptian as the pace picks up nicely with a choppy orchestral beat plus a sitar and guitar solo. "Strange Constellations / Reprise" the third and forth parts narrated by Highlander (Fish) with an atmospheric background and some remarkable guitar and keyboard work. This is an amazing piece of work that I could use a thousand words describing.

"The Decision Tree (we're alive)" sung by Barbarian and Highland, with all joining in on the chorus's. It is a medium slow very catchy song with lots of organs and synths.

"Across the Rainbow Bridge" sung by Knight, Roman and Hippie. Opens with acoustic then switches back and forth to electric while keyboards in background to a varied pace. At three+ minutes it changes with a chugging beat at a medium fast pace. really great song.

"the Garden of Emotions" is a ten minute multi-part song that opens Disc 2. "In the Garden of Emotions" sung by Hippie (actually spoken through a distorter of some sort) and Egyptian slowly and atmospheric. "Voices in the Sky" picks up with a heavy crunchy beat and some very nifty organ / synth work. sung by Barbarian, Roman and Indian. "The Agression Factor" is sung by Futureman , Knight and Indian and is a mix of the first two parts

"The Castle Hall" sung by Knight and Barbarian, starts out with some very deep heavy guitar work and ominous singing before mellowing out at a medium tempo. Great melody and hooks.

"The Two Gates" sung by Barbarian and Knight, played in a medium heavy beat and pace with some more great hooks and all singers join in and pace changes again. Excellent!(Trying to describe these songs is impossible, every couple minutes everything changes)
CONCLUSION

I have a soft spot in my heart for Ayreon. They, are the catalyst that has propelled me in the musical direction I have chosen. I accidentaly came across them while downloading and was so overwhelmed and intrigued that I wondered what else I could be missing. It turns out, it was quite a bit, so for the last two years I have been relentless in that nothing worthy gets by me.

The whole time I was writing this review I had this eerie
feeling that our characters, Highlander, Indian , knight etc. were members of that inane TV show, Survivor. Of course in our story the characters die instead of getting voted off. Oh, I didn't tell you? Sorry.

Ok, the conclusion. Ayreon is remarkable, and Into the Electric Castle is his most remarkable project. This is Progressive music like no others make. It is bombastic, highly varied (even within each song)and even at 100 minutes it captivates you. I just finished a review on another rock opera, a rather good rock opera I might add but it pales in comparison to this, this is chicken salad while it is chicken sh-i-t.

So, if you don't buy this album I'm going to report you to the consumer office of bad judgement for obviously following a path of mundane, mediocrity.

Arjen Anthony Lucassen has put together quite a project here. Into the Electric Castle is 100+ minute "space opera" that tells the story of eight people plucked up from different places in time to face the challenges of the electric castle. A narrator guides the characters (and the listener) with verbose phrases like, "You have entered the cranial vistas of psychogenesis." One of the most impressive qualities of this album is how every character is represented by a different vocalist. Some of the high-profile folks are Fish (ex-Marillion) as the Highlander, Anneke van Giersbergen (The Gathering) as the Egyptian, and Damian Wilson as the Knight. Other, less well-known vocalists play, err, _sing_ the other characters, with Lucassen himself playing the Hippie.

The first few tracks being with the characters assessing their surroundings. Different characters, based on their backgrounds, interpret their situation differently. The Knight thinks he has discovered the mystical island of Avalon. The Roman thinks they've been plunged into the Underworld. The Egyptian's reaction is similar, as she thinks they have been chosen to enter the realms of her gods. Musically, Lucassen begins by building his music around the characters. The Highlander is treated to soft acoustic guitars, the Egyptian is accompanied with middle-eastern chords, and the Barbarian takes on straight-ahead rock n' roll. As the story progresses, each song becomes a different challenge presented by the electric castle. By the end, most of the characters are killed by one trap or another.

It's all pretty campy, but musically the Ayreon project is brilliant. Tons of musical styles are explored: melodic prog rock ("The Decision Tree," "Tunnel of Light"), soft acoustic balladry ("The Valley of the Queens"), even some metal. I should stress, however, that the metal isn't threatening, or even really that heavy. It's just that there's some heavier riffs to convey particular scenes (like "Across the Rainbow Bridge") with a bit more intensity and power. Even the "death metal" section is integrated tastefully. This occurs when the character called Death (performed with death, growly vox) kills the Indian. Still, it's weird -- you'd think this album was recorded to be a metal album. Although it's full of range and clarity, the recording is thick and bass-heavy, more fitting to metal than something lighter. Other styles of music here are classical (a requisite prog staple), some jazz, and some psychedelic rock.

I don't have a problem with the cheesy story, but I found that sometimes the music didn't fit particular scenes. In the case of the "The Decision Tree," the cast must decide who among them must die before they can move on. Mainly, the Highlander and the Barbarian argue over their individual merits and why they should stay. The group seems to take this event well, or at least the music suggests that they do...it's surprisingly upbeat and peppy. Fortunately, the music most often fits the action well. Really! "The Mirror Maze" is pretty gloomy and mysterious; "Death's Grunt" is a dark, evil piece; and the spacey, atmospheric "Time Beyond Time."

It's not perfect, but forgive its faults and admire it. Albums like this don't come along too often.

With Arjen Lucassen's first Ayreon album, The Final Experiment, we were treated to a mix of prog rock, prog metal and symphonic power metal. With Ayreon's second effort, Actual Fantasy, we were given a dose of Pink Floyd-ish hard rock. On Into the Electric Castle, all the elements from The Final Experiment and Actual Fantasy are combined into a stunning two-disc "space opera".
As the story of eight strangers from different points in time is told, we are given songs that are reminiscent of Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Rainbow, ELP and Savatage--the full spectrum of classic hard rock and epic rock.
Highlights include:

"The Decision Tree" - This song is basically an argument between two of the characters, the Barbarian (Jay van Feggelen) and the Highlander (Fish). The Barbarian is arrogant, over-bearing and looking for a fight. The Highlander is tired of fighting but is more than the Barbarian's equal. The give and take between the two is fascinating. And the music gives the argument a sense of urgent playfulness: Both characters' lives are on the line trapped in the Electric Castle, but the Highlander knows that the Barbarian is just a blowhard.
"Across the Rainbow Bridge" - The Knight (Damian Wilson) remembers his yesterdays and the Roman (Edwin Balogh) wants to push forward as they trade off back and forth on lead vocals. The Hippie (Arjen Lucassen) gets involved and then things get spacey. Psychedelic rock and heavy metal are mixed effectively here.

"Valley of the Queens" - Anneke van Giershergen (The Gathering) as the Egyptian sings her farewell on the short but incredibly beautiful tune.
"The Two Gates" - The end of the journey has come. And now the remaining five travelers must decide which gate to exit the Electric Castle. And the Barbarian takes things into his own hands. This is the most bombastic and urgent tune on the entire two disc album.

Though not as heavy overall as The Final Experiment, there is still enough "heavy rock" to go around on Into the Electric Castle. The eight different singers, representing the eight different characters, are all perfectly cast. Damian Wilson (ex-Threshold) as the Knight and Fish (ex-Marillion) as the Highlander are especially good here.

This is a GREAT album. Adventurous, innovative and emotional are all words I would use to describe this wonderful CD. Arjen Lucassen is a superb songwriter, maybe the best in prog rock/prog metal today. Along with Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime, Boston's debut, Savatage's Streets, and Van Halen's debut, Into the Electric Castle is one of the five best albums I've ever heard.

Note: The eight characters in Into the Electric Castle are as follows: Knight, Highlander, Barbarian, Futureman, Hippie, Roman, Indian and Egyptian (the latter two are female). Not all make it out of the Electric Castle alive! Hey, that's the fun of a rock opera.

Sooner or later I had to get to Ayreon

Should any of my readers not know who Ayreon is, let me edify you. Ayreon is not a band, not really. Neither is Ambeon. Let me explain. Ayreon and Ambeon are projects, you might say alter egos of brilliant Dutch composer and musician, Arjen Anthony Luccassen.

You see, Arjen has borrowed one from the book of the ever successful recording broker, Alan Parsons. He composes a Rock Opera and then like the mice followed the Pied Piper into the river, several well known, at least to me, guest singers and musicians follow our piperish leader, Arjen, into the studio to record, this wonderful music.

Now Arjen hasn't used this successful formula once or twice. No he's made eight exciting albums this way, two of which are double albums. Mind you now, I understand there's a waiting list to be in Arjen's next production.
I can see why, it must be fun, mingling with other very talented people and making this remarkably interesting and different music. It's probably like, if I may regress to seventies terms, a "happening". And how different it is!

Into the Electric Castle, as do all of Arjen's projects, tells a story and in this case it is a science fiction story centered around eight strangers brought together into a dimension of no space and no time. It seems, if Luccassen ever decides to hang up his guitar he could make a living writing sci-fi.

Here is a summary of the story from Ayreon's Website:

"'Into the Electric Castle' tells the story of 8 stereotypical characters from different periods of time who suddenly find themselves in another dimension. A Highlander, Knight, Egyptian, Indian, Barbarian, Roman, Hippie and Futureman each try to understand where they are and what they are supposed to do. It is then that a voice rings out from the sky to tell them that the dimension they have arrived in is built on dreams and fears. In order to find their way back to their own dimension and time, they must go in search of The Electric Castle. During the search every character is forced to confront his or her innermost fears, and not everyone survives the treacherous journey to the Castle."

"At the end of the journey those that successfully dealt with their personal demons find out that the voice belongs to an alien named 'Forever of the Stars', a member of an alien race living in a distant galaxy. These aliens created planet Earth and its people as an experiment so they could study, and hopefully one day experience emotions, as they themselves lost feelings eons ago."

"'Into the Electric Castle' is a double CD. On disc 1 we experience the journey to The Electric Castle and on disc 2 we find out what happens when they arrive there."

Haven't I read something by Stephen King like that. Yeah, I know, the plot is pretty ch-e-e-ze ball but honestly the music is fabulous, here are some highlights:

"Isis and Osiris" is an eleven minute multi-part song.

"Let the Journey Begin" is the first part with Highlander and Indian singing in what is an ethereal, almost Moody Blues part. "The halls of Isis and Osiris" is sung by Roman and Egyptian as the pace picks up nicely with a choppy orchestral beat plus a sitar and guitar solo. "Strange Constellations / Reprise" the third and forth parts narrated by Highlander (Fish) with an atmospheric background and some remarkable guitar and keyboard work. This is an amazing piece of work that I could use a thousand words describing.

"The Decision Tree (we're alive)" sung by Barbarian and Highland, with all joining in on the chorus's. It is a medium slow very catchy song with lots of organs and synths.

"Across the Rainbow Bridge" sung by Knight, Roman and Hippie. Opens with acoustic then switches back and forth to electric while keyboards in background to a varied pace. At three+ minutes it changes with a chugging beat at a medium fast pace. really great song.

"the Garden of Emotions" is a ten minute multi-part song that opens Disc 2. "In the Garden of Emotions" sung by Hippie (actually spoken through a distorter of some sort) and Egyptian slowly and atmospheric. "Voices in the Sky" picks up with a heavy crunchy beat and some very nifty organ / synth work. sung by Barbarian, Roman and Indian. "The Agression Factor" is sung by Futureman , Knight and Indian and is a mix of the first two parts

"The Castle Hall" sung by Knight and Barbarian, starts out with some very deep heavy guitar work and ominous singing before mellowing out at a medium tempo. Great melody and hooks.

"The Two Gates" sung by Barbarian and Knight, played in a medium heavy beat and pace with some more great hooks and all singers join in and pace changes again. Excellent!(Trying to describe these songs is impossible, every couple minutes everything changes)
CONCLUSION

I have a soft spot in my heart for Ayreon. They, are the catalyst that has propelled me in the musical direction I have chosen. I accidentaly came across them while downloading and was so overwhelmed and intrigued that I wondered what else I could be missing. It turns out, it was quite a bit, so for the last two years I have been relentless in that nothing worthy gets by me.

The whole time I was writing this review I had this eerie
feeling that our characters, Highlander, Indian , knight etc. were members of that inane TV show, Survivor. Of course in our story the characters die instead of getting voted off. Oh, I didn't tell you? Sorry.

Ok, the conclusion. Ayreon is remarkable, and Into the Electric Castle is his most remarkable project. This is Progressive music like no others make. It is bombastic, highly varied (even within each song)and even at 100 minutes it captivates you. I just finished a review on another rock opera, a rather good rock opera I might add but it pales in comparison to this, this is chicken salad while it is chicken sh-i-t.

So, if you don't buy this album I'm going to report you to the consumer office of bad judgement for obviously following a path of mundane, mediocrity.

With Arjen Lucassen's first Ayreon album, The Final Experiment, we were treated to a mix of prog rock, prog metal and symphonic power metal. With Ayreon's second effort, Actual Fantasy, we were given a dose of Pink Floyd-ish hard rock. On Into the Electric Castle, all the elements from The Final Experiment and Actual Fantasy are combined into a stunning two-disc "space opera".

As the story of eight strangers from different points in time is told, we are given songs that are reminiscent of Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Rainbow, ELP and Savatage--the full spectrum of classic hard rock and epic rock.
Highlights include:

"The Decision Tree" - This song is basically an argument between two of the characters, the Barbarian (Jay van Feggelen) and the Highlander (Fish). The Barbarian is arrogant, over-bearing and looking for a fight. The Highlander is tired of fighting but is more than the Barbarian's equal. The give and take between the two is fascinating. And the music gives the argument a sense of urgent playfulness: Both characters' lives are on the line trapped in the Electric Castle, but the Highlander knows that the Barbarian is just a blowhard.
"Across the Rainbow Bridge" - The Knight (Damian Wilson) remembers his yesterdays and the Roman (Edwin Balogh) wants to push forward as they trade off back and forth on lead vocals. The Hippie (Arjen Lucassen) gets involved and then things get spacey. Psychedelic rock and heavy metal are mixed effectively here.

"Valley of the Queens" - Anneke van Giershergen (The Gathering) as the Egyptian sings her farewell on the short but incredibly beautiful tune.
"The Two Gates" - The end of the journey has come. And now the remaining five travelers must decide which gate to exit the Electric Castle. And the Barbarian takes things into his own hands. This is the most bombastic and urgent tune on the entire two disc album.

Though not as heavy overall as The Final Experiment, there is still enough "heavy rock" to go around on Into the Electric Castle. The eight different singers, representing the eight different characters, are all perfectly cast. Damian Wilson (ex-Threshold) as the Knight and Fish (ex-Marillion) as the Highlander are especially good here.

This is a GREAT album. Adventurous, innovative and emotional are all words I would use to describe this wonderful CD. Arjen Lucassen is a superb songwriter, maybe the best in prog rock/prog metal today. I cannot believe anyone would knock this album, but knock it they do. The songwriting is good and the production sounds fine to me. Those who get into production minutia fail to realize what great music is all about--it's the songs, stupid! Into the Electric Castle is all about songs.

Note: The eight characters in Into the Electric Castle are as follows: Knight, Highlander, Barbarian, Futureman, Hippie, Roman, Indian and Egyptian (the latter two are female). Not all make it out of the Electric Castle alive!

The music of Ayreon doesn't fit into any easy categories. . . Symphonic metal? Power prog? Heavy music? Psychedelic space visions? In my opinion, this is what heavy metal was always destined to mature into, if only most of it hadn't degenerated into merely loud head-banging.

Whatever it is, I love it. I've collected most of Arjen Anthony Luccassen's recordings, and have to rate this one as the pinnacle -- at least so far. The whole two-disc set is more polished and consistent than Ayreon's earlier recordings. It's very much a concept album that leads the listener on a journey, not merely a collection of tunes.

If you like Into the Electric Castle (and you will!), the next thing to look for should be The Dream Sequencer. I consider it a very close second out of Ayreon's catalog.

I'll leave the in-depth review in the capable hands of those who have already submitted (although I'm still a bit mystified by the bad rap due to rap content -- I guess we all have opinions!).
I hear many influences in this work, all to great effect. Pink Floyd, Dream Theater, Marillion (because of Fish's voice no doubt), Alan Parsons, Supertramp, Holst, blues, even the Beatles! The sci-fi story is compelling and holds all the varied styles together nicely. This is great prog done by great musicians, with enough prog-metal and space rock to satify the most demanding listener. Many spine-tingling passages. Excellent!

Ayreon is the ultimate 'one man' project. Arjen is man behind Ayreon, coming up with the concepts and doing most of the writing. The fact that he uses different musicians and singers on every album means he can really explore a lot of different styles and sounds. Every Ayreon album is unique and packed with creativity.

Into the Electric Castle is my favorite Ayreon so far. It's pretty much uncategorizable, there's so much variety from one song to the next. From haunting acoustic guitar bits to driving hard rock (sometimes within the same song!), it sucks you in like nothing you've ever heard before. There are 9 or 10 different singers on this cd (including Arjen himself), and they all add their own elements without overpowering it. The songs have a lot of variety to them, but fit together so perfectly, even when you're going from a screaming guitar solo (the end of Amazing Flight in Space) to an acoustic number (Time Beyond Time). The storyline is kind of cheesy, reminiscent of the old pulp sci-fi novels, but is very interesting, and ties everything together.

One of the coolest cd's I've ever heard, but definitely made for people who like different styles and types of music. If you're into the whole zero-creativity-and-originality mainstream music scene, don't bother, you'll just find it strange and confusing. But if you're looking for something different, pick this up and you will not be disapointed!

Favorite song: ALL OF THEM! I had some favorites when I first started listening to this, but the more I listened, the more I got into the whole album. So I can't really pick a particular song, they're all so good!

Like almost every single note of Lucassen, this is a space opera that could be classified as exceptionally original. The keyboards are Arjen-signed. I can tell when a keyboard theme is written by Lucassen from the first note of it.
8 brilliant voices help this amazing album as well as a bunch of musicians who play guitar and keys.
From Vangelis keys to heavy prog guitar themes this album guarantees to never bore you. The story is fantastic.
ahh.... Too much speaking for nothing: just buy this thing. It's one of a kind (like every other Ayreon album)

Let me say first off that this is a fantastic album, and I agree with all of the 4+ star reviews given by others on here.

My 1 star refers to the quality of the MP3 rip sold here on Amazon (as well as the AAC files available on iTunes, as far as I understand).

The last track from each disc (Across the Rainbow Bridge, and Another Time, Another Space) both have problems.

Across the Rainbow Bridge has approximately 2 minutes of silence inserted at the end, followed by a glitchy sounding buzzing noise--this is annoying if you plan on listening to the whole album from start to finish (you need to skip forward half-way through to avoid the stretch of silence).

At around 5:20 in Another Time, Another Space, where the voice from the sky says "Remember forever," the track starts skipping, and you get well over 2 minutes of "rever rever rever rever rever" repeated over and over again until the track unceremoniously ends with more glitchy sounding buzzing noises and clicks.

Those are the two huge problems that I noticed--there may be other problems with other tracks that I am unaware of. Again, this is a fantastic prog rock album, but the MP3 download is broken enough that it ruins the listening experience if you want the whole thing.