THE HUMAN EQUATION

This supposed masterpiece by Lucassen proved to be a tough nut to crack for me. I owe it for a long time now, listen to it occasionally, sometimes surprised how good it still is but most of the time put off a bit by the many overblown tracks this doubler possesses.

Disc one is the best example of what I mean. There is one outstanding track on here being the second: Isolation. The rest is too vocal for me. And then I emphasize "for me". Because I do understand why many consider this a masterpiece. If you are a vocal oriented music lover this rock opera/concept album is definitely a treat. But I'm not a fan of this kind of albums. I also declared this with Clive Nolan's SHE and actually this is more or less the same idea. Lucassen wrote this mainly for vocalists which is not always the case with his albums. But anyway, this explains my love for Isolation, the most instrumental track of Disc 1.

Disc 2 is the better of the two, at least for my taste. Again this is no coincidence because on several tracks there is enough attention for instrumental music. Loser and Pride are the ultimate highlights for me, also of the entire double album. (Where Pride is concerned: this track is very much "Into the Electric Castle" style and this happens to be my favorite Ayreon album). But the rest spoils much of the fun for me. In Arjen's discography this magnum opus takes in a modest place if I have to make my personal ranking list. But I have to say it again: objectively at least a near masterpiece, for me personally only 3* I'm afraid (3,3)