UNIVERSAL MIGRATOR, PART 2: FLIGHT OF THE MIGRATOR

Flight of the Migrator is the heavy twin of the soft and melodic Dream Sequencer. Though this is the superior album, it's less proggy than part 1. First off, the vocalist selection on this disc may be my favorite, even beating out the stunning ensemble on Human Equation. It even beats out Neal Morse and Damian Wilson on the last album. Bruce Dickinson, Russel Allen, Ralf Scheepers, Andi Deris, it's a metalhead's dream! However, as with part 1, each vocalist gets one song rather than working as a team. The message of the concept is defined with this release: Where did man come from?

Where Part 1 had only two standouts (2084 and Carried By the Wind), this album is fairly strong. Into the Black Hole, The New Migrator, Dawn of a Million Souls, and To the Quasar are killer, but the album as a whole falls flat. At the end of Part 1, the colonist had witnessed the birth of man. Part 2 opens with the colonist reactivating the dream sequencer to travel back to the beginning of time. He witnesses the Big Bang, and discovers that from the explosion a number of flying objects called migrators are born to seed life in the universe. The colonist follows the migrator bound for Earth.

As with all Ayreon releases, there are links ot past and future works. Part 1 introduces the first incarnation of Ayreon. This time, the colonist, following the migrator, flies past Planet Y, the planet of Forever from Into the Electric Castle. Also, Arjen has hinted that the colonist is the Futureman from ItEC.

Flight of the Migrator has a fair share of prog, but not nearly as much on THE or ItEC. It's superior to part 1, but not by a lot. Fans of Ayreon should own Parts 1 and 2, and Arjen realized his error and packaged the two together so now it's easy to get both.

Grade: C+