UNIVERSAL MIGRATOR, PART 2: FLIGHT OF THE MIGRATOR

For starters I must say that this is a quite amusing CD to listen to, but not the most original album available.

This album is easily recognizable as an Ayreon album. It is semi-complex (trying to be complex when not necessarily) and it features typical keyboard sounds. Compared to its counterpart "The Dream Sequencer" I think this is far more technically and more heavy, but that's already mentioned on the back of the disc's artwork.

What caught my eye with this CD was the impressive list of collaborators: Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Erik Norlander, Clive Nolan, Lana Lane, among others. This list sure looked promising, but the overall product sounds a bit too "smooth" for me; it sounds over-produced to my ears.

Enough about the (too) technicality of the music, this album does have its positive sides. One of those are the vocals. Most of the times the various vocals are well sung and I can appreciate this above the instrumentation.

And though you might have noticed that I am not a huge fan of the instrumentation on Ayreon albums (the only one that I consider to be great is "The Human Equation"), I must admit that there are some nice parts included. For instance, there are some medieval sounding keyboards in track #3 (Journey on the Waves of Time), I absolutely adore the start of the second section of the song To the Quasar and this song also features a very nice keyboard solo performed by Rene Merkelbach towards the end I must say and the last guitar solo in this song is also amazing!

Also the whole of track #5 (Into the Black Hole) is simply stunning and I like the introduction of track #8 ( To the Solar System) and the weird ending of this song is also very anti-relaxed.

Albeit there are some nice parts in this album, I would not recommend it as something essential. If you can get your hands on it for a nice price (I bought it for 7?), I'd say go for it, but otherwise. leave it be.

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