where does Michael Romeo play on 01011001?

E=mc^2, starting at 4:25. 

^ Fifth Extinction, 5:15.

yeah i thought that was it, but on the website Arjen talks about this insane chromatic lick that Michael does, but there aren't any chromatic runs in that solo.

And before you ask: Waking Dreams, 3:30.

But isn't that Tomas Bodin (Flower Kings)?  I'm a fan of his and I easily recognize that it is him, not Derek.

it is impressive, it also bored the hell out of me

To be honest, Michael Romeo's solo is pretty invisible on this album, he doesnt stand out at all IMO, not like on Dawn of a Million Souls were I could instantly tell it was him without havin to check.

Derek Sherinians solo on The Fifth Extinction is quite good though, his keyboard tone is always  rather unique.

Atavachron wrote: it is impressive, it also bored the hell out of me

I only needed to read the first few sentences of your review to realize that you simply don't know what it's about. Maybe it would be better to pay a little more attention to the lyrics before you make bold statements like "an idea with as much depth as a tuna sandwich". If anything your review suggests that you simply don't know much about Ayreon.

No offense intended, you're free to dislike Ayreon ... I'm just quite sure that you dislike it for the wrong reasons.


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - March 02 2008 at 09:32

^ I really didn't mean to offend you. I simply think that some statements in your review are a bit presumptuous ... they suggest to me that you might not have given the album the enough time to get to know it properly. By "wrong reasons" I meant misunderstandings or false impressions ...

I will try to find the time to post my own review this week. I think it's necessary to counter-weight some of the current reviews, particularly the special collab ones. Zitro's one also seems strange to me - the first paragraph shows that he understood the concept pretty well, but then he bashes the song "Web of Lies" ... and apparently doesn't understand that it's meant to be an ironic depiction of the new generation of "computer kids" and their inability to communicate ... he seems to think that it's meant to be a romantic love song.

Laplace's review ... well, at least his star rating is honest and matches what he's saying about the album. I hope in his quest for the perfect music he finds what he's looking for ... my recommendation would be the random static noise on a tv set with no channel set. Totally unpredictable, and none of this dreadful 7/8 cheese.

I'm simply sure that the album is a masterpiece ... two of the biggest problems people seem to have with it are that it's similar in style to the previous albums, and that it's a bit lengthy and drawn out, particularly the songs on the first CD. I know that these two things are intentional, they're part of the concept. The first side of the album is about an alien race for which time doesn't exist ... "they are forever of the stars". One of the songs is even called "Liquid *Eternity*". And those who are avid followers of Arjen's concept will know both the planet Y and this alien race from the previous albums. I like the concept so much that I won't go into detail here, in order not to spoil the experience of finding out about it for others. Suffice it to say that all Ayreon albums except for Actual Fantasy are part of the same concept.

Of course me calling it a masterpiece doesn't mean that everybody *must* like the album. Trout Mask Replica is a masterpiece for many people too, and absolutely loathed by others. The two albums may very well represents extremes on the opposite of the spectrum ...


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - March 03 2008 at 02:25

^ I guess the problem with 01011001 might be its length - compared to Rush's Cygnus. Of course The Human Equation also was a 2 disc release, but its story line was more straight forward and didn't contain any references to other Ayreon albums (except for one short occasion ). This may cause people who only listened to the previous Ayreon albums on a rather superficial level - paying more attention to the music than to the lyrics - to get bored easily, while those who know the underlying story in and out can really enjoy 01011001.

Just a few examples of the lyrical and musical links (warning: spoiler ahead):

• 01011001 is the ASCII code for the letter "Y". This is a reference to the planet Y which was introduced on Universal Migrator: Flight of the Migrator.
• In the beginning of Web of Lies in the background another Ayreon tune can be heard: Valley of the Queens from Into the Electric Castle. Interestingly both Web of Lies and Valley of the Queens have the same role on the record: An interlude-like melancholic acoustic ballad with female vocals.
• In Waking Dreams, after the Tomas Bodin solo Arjen is playing a guitar solo which is very similar to the solo from The Dream Sequencer. Of course this is not a coincidence, considering the topics of both tracks.
• The Truth is In Here obviously deals with what happened to the hippie character from Into the Electric Castle - he ends up in an asylum on heavy medication because of his hallucinations.
• River of Time is curious ... musically it sounds a lot like Loser from THE - at least the intro - and lyrically it's close to the first Ayreon album, as it - together with the following two tracks - describes the attempts of the alien race to send visions of mankind's impending doom backwards in time.

Edited by MikeEnRegalia - March 04 2008 at 03:18