THE HUMAN EQUATION

Oh what a surprise i found when i first listen to Ayreon. The Human Equation was my introductory cd on Arjen Lucassen and his sound, and it was a very good beggining. I first got to say that this may be one of a top ten conceptual albums, the story is catching from the beggining to the end. It's divided on to cd's: both are great but there are some differencies. Cd1 is a little bit more soft than Cd2, there are beautiful passages on both.

The story is divided by days, each day with a little title that follows the story, an interesting story. Well, on the instrumental part it's damn good also, the guests that participate on the album are top musicians and singers. Each guest is a character from the story, we have also instrumental guests.

Story + instrumentation = a great album, plus guests... a wonderful album. But what if we take the guests out? It probably still be a great album but not a wonderful one. I think that's the weak point of The Human Equation. It depends a lot on the guests and if we virtually take them off, the greatness of the record will fall. Ayreon as a collective band is perhaps the only bad thing on the album.

This album is close to a masterpiece but it still misses something. My rating: 4 stars and a half.