AYREONAUTS ONLY

I am not very keen on such offerings. Demo versions, unreleased "acoustic" ones, some other vocalists in charge on studio tracks are more a fan's trap than anything else IMO.

One has to acknowledge that "Ayreon" is faithful to its fans. It is specifically mentioned that this album is NOT a new album.

The usual fan wouldn't be disappointed with this limited edition album. Some classic "Ayreon" songs are revisited and not for the worse I must say.

The aspect I like the least is that most of the songs comes from Arjen's last offering "The Universal Migrator" (being from "The Dream Sequencer" or the "Flight Migrator" parts). To have released this type of remixes the very same year of the original release is rather annoying and I just DISLIKE this marketing approach.

Musically, this is very much more related to metal than "The Final Experiment" for instance. Most of the songs are very pleasant but on the harder edge. Just skip the prog attribute in the combined prog-metal wording. Unless that you believe that if as soon as you hear some keyboards, the music played is automatically prog to your ears. But this is not my case.

Great vocals as usual of course. But that's a huge invention of Lucas. To have great guest vocalists on his albums. It is also interesting to know that some songs released in 2000 were already in gestation as soon as 1992 ("Chaos" or "Carpe Diem" here). This is a great instrumental and the whole of Arjen's virtuosity is featured.

In terms of interesting discoveries, the same applies to "The Charm of the Seer" and "Nature's Dance" presented in their 1994 "home studio" versions and both available on "The Final Experiment". Even the acoustic equivalent of "Temple Of The Cat" is very pleasant. Very much "Mostly Autumn" oriented.

This remix album from the several "Ayreon" offerings is a good effort. Might well be a good entry point if you would like to discover this artist.

Three stars although the commercial approach is rather suspect, but his only reflects my humble and honest opinion.