UNIVERSAL MIGRATOR, PART 1: THE DREAM SEQUENCER

As an introductory warning, I should point out that while Ayreon is categorized as prog metal, The Dream Sequencer is not a prog metal album. This is rather a major breakthrough in the genre of ambient / zen progressive rock music.

First, if you give yourself the incredible chance to listen to this magnificent album, I suggest you read first the great sci-fi story that The Dream Sequencer is about to tell you. Then, "focus on the music, as I take you back to your childhood... and beyond..." You will be rewarded for this extra step as the atmospheric music wil only embrace you further, as you follow the last survivor of a desperate colony on Mars going back in time, using the colony's recreation machine called the Dream Sequencer, which he intends to use to sweeten his final days.

After a gazing guitar opener, My House on Mars greets you with winds that immerse you in the Martian desert. A hauting guitar riff and gloomy keyboards slowly take on, followed by Edlund's low and dreary vocals. The journey has begun, and from the Earth's demise in 2084 to Apollo 11, to the Spanish Armada and then to Stonehenge, it wont release its grasp until the very end, after you have met with The First Man on Earth and lived the melancholy-filled experience of this last colonist as Arjen Lucassen imagined it.

Save perhaps for Temple of the Cat which I find below the average, this is an album with virtually no weakness, unless you're addicted to heavy. Bewitching melodies intertwined with amazing guitars and keyboards compositions, all held together with the most fascinating and gripping storytelling there is out there in music.

This is an album that I cannot get tired of listening to, be it alone with the volume maxed or as a background, during dinner for instance. Since its release, it has me hoping that more works of this kind would see the light of day. Five stars for several reasons, among them creativity and melodic achievement.

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