01011001

Now Ayreon (for those of you who have been living in caves) is a project created by Arjen Anthony Lucassen the creator of..things. He also has another two projects/bands in the form of Star One and Guilt Machine and also formed Stream Of Passion. This being the latest offering with the wierdly confusing title 01011001, i believe its some kind of morse code.., anyway the concept is rather confusing and long winded to put on here but lets just say it involves different worlds and universes and whatnot (typical prog stuff then).

The cool thing about these albums is that it isnt just Arjen on these albums, oh no no, he gets some of the greatest voices and musicians in prog rock and metal to sing and play on these albums, and this one is no different, Daniel Gildenlöw from Pain Of Salvation, Simone Simons from Epica, Jørn Lande from Masterplan and Hansi Kürsch from the fantastic Blind Guardian are just some of the amazing vocalists on this album with the occasional guest guitar solo and keyboard solo from people such as Michael Romeo and Joost van den Broek.

Everything about this album is fantastic the production is so clean and everything just jumps out at you, even the accoustic guitars really shine, with some of the strongest vocal proformances i've ever heard, overall just fantastic. Not only that but every style of genre worth thinking about is covered here from regular prog rock/ metal (the opening track AGE OF SHADOWS) big bombastic almost musical like proformances (BENEATH THE WAVES, NEWBORN RACE) theres also folk rock stylings (WEB OF LIES, THE TRUTH IS IN HERE) and a touch of electronica (COMATOSE) not only that, with this being a double album its 2 CDs of non stop greatness;

CD 1

Age Of Shadows - 10/10 Comatose - 7/10 Liquid Eternity - 8/10 Connect The Dots - 7/10 Beneath The Waves - 9/10 Newborn Race - 10/10 Ride The Comet - 8/10 Web Of Lies - 8/10

CD 2

The Fifth Extinction - 9/10 Walking Dreams - 8/10 The Truth Is In Here - 8/10 Unnatural Selection - 8/10 River Of Time - 9/10 E=mc2 - 8/10 The Sixth Extinction - 10/10

My Conclusion? I would highly recomend this album to anyone prog fan or not. Instant Classic.