ACTUAL FANTASY REVISITED

AYREON was very pleased to kick off in 1995 with "The Final Experiment" a huge Rock Opera. In 1998 he will take the Rock Opera to an even higher surface with his third studio album "Into The Electric Castle".

Therefore I'm a bit confused by his second album "Actual Fantasy", because it's very much different. I'm not saying that it's less good though, just very more "ambient" or "synthetic".

The second CD released under the Ayreon name is 'Actual Fantasy'. It has no continuous story with a beginning and an end, but the CD's entire concept is fantasy. The songs are based on fantasy and sci-fi movies, or on stories Arjen wrote himself. The first ten thousand copies of Actual Fantasy featured a bonus CD-rom track; a full- length animated video clip for 'Stranger From Within'. The second version of the CD featured two bonus tracks: 'The Dawn of Man' and the single version for 'Stranger From Within' replacing the video. I think that Arjen did great doing the re-issue "Actual Fantasy Revisited". He thought that the guitars he played on the first release were a bit "outdated" and he also had Ed Warby drum all parts for which he used "drum computers" at first. The result worked out great, especially in the 5.1 surround mix.

My humble opinion on this album: very nice album but not for starters. They better try "Into The Electric Castle" or "The Universal Migrator" at first.

Actual Fantasy Revisited: almost 4 stars

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