UNIVERSAL MIGRATOR, PART 1: THE DREAM SEQUENCER

'The Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer' is the fourth album of Ayreon, the musical project of the Dutch songwriter, producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen and was released in 2000. The line up on the album is Arjen Lucassen, Rob Snijders, Lana Lane, Johan Edlund, Floor Jansen, Edward Reekers, Mouse, Damian Wilson, Jacqueline Govaert, Neal Morse, Mark McCrite, Clive Nolan, Erik Norlander and Peter Siedlach.

It represents the first part of 'The Universal Migrator' project, with the second part named 'The Universal Migrator Part Two: Flight Of The Migrator'. 'The Dream Sequencer' features a musical style quite disparate from its counterpart 'Flight Of The Migrator'. It features a musical atmospheric feeling, with a soft and more melodic sound than that on 'Flight Of The Migrator', which is much more a metal album. However, both albums were released simultaneously.

The performances of all singers on the album are great. Initially, the album was planned to be sung only by women since Arjen wanted it to be as cozy, laid-back, and atmospheric as possible but he wanted a new singer for each song and he couldn't find enough. So, we have Lana Lane the queen of the symphonic rock, Johan Edlund from Tiama, Damian Wilson from Threshold, Floor Jansen from After Forever, Arjen himself and a lot of many more artists, some of them less known talents from the progressive rock world such as Edward Reekers and we have even Neal Morse from Spock's Beard. It's really nice when we have some half-unknown singers because we can focus more on the music and avoid some other things. Arjen himself also does an enormous great work, of course, as a songwriter, a singer and as a player of almost all the instruments on the album. Lyrics are simplistic but always great and fit perfectly well all over the album. The cover artwork of the album is one of the best I've seen, which became a trademark of all Arjen's albums.

'The Dream Sequencer' is a conceptual album, as are all Ayreon's albums, and represents another part in Areon's story. So, if you want to understand perfectly well the lyrics, you better buy the other albums as well. The story of 'The Dream Sequencer' continues the plot found in 'The Final Experiment', starting in the year 2084, when the final world war wiped out all life on Earth. During the final years of fighting on Earth, a number of humans escaped to live on Mars. 'The Dream Sequencer' tells the story of the last human being alive, living alone on the Martian colony. As he has born on Mars and never lived on Earth, he could only experience it through a machine known as the Dream Sequencer. The machine uses a form of hypnosis to travel back in time, and the colonist uses the machine to revisit his own youth living on Mars and eventually views of many other past lives. The lyrics are basically objective accounts of the different time periods that the last human happens to visit. There's a certain moody quality to them, considering the impending extinction of the human race. Each track on 'The Dream Sequencer' revisits one of these past lives.

Musically, 'The Dream Sequencer' sounds different, but it sounds really as an Ayreon's album. It sounds very soft and melodic, and the group that I can easily compared with it, is Pink Floyd. But it sounds much more modern of course. For those who are accustomed to the traditional sound of Ayreon, I can say that it sounds more or less like if Lucassen had taken all the folk and non-metal parts of the previous Ayreon's albums and attach them to the songs, with much more synthesizers added. Most of the songs are long and have a very epic feel, with the exception of 'Temple Of The Cat' which was released as a single. So, this first album contains mostly atmospheric sound escapes and not much heaviness at all, in contrast with the second album. It consists of an ambient of progressive varied rock music, dominated primarily by brilliant melodies. The compositions usually have an ambient of light electronic beat, which is a signature in all Ayreon's music. This may come as a surprise for progressive music enthusiasts and many may shy away from the ambient aspects of the music, but I saw that it's a very innovative take on the new progressive music universe, and can act with the advantage of the individual songs to the open minded listeners, that we should all be.

Conclusion: As I wrote before, 'The Dream Sequencer' is simply the first part of 'The Universal Migrator' and represents the most soft and melodic side of the all working. The album is a grower if you listen to it several times, especially if you are in the right mood, there's much to enjoy on it. 'The Dream Sequencer' is a very atmospheric album, with beautiful Pink Floyd's guitar style and has a great production. If you are a fanatic of space progressive rock with epic elements and film score connotations, this album and this project are made for you. In fact, I believe that this album will satisfy all the followers of the good music, and also the cover artwork is one of the best I've seen. I haven't got tired of it and I really recommend it to all fans of Ayreon and to everyone who likes of truly progressive atmospheric music. In fact, I sincerely believe that this album will satisfy completely all followers of the good music of any genre.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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