01011001

I waited a long time for this album. And I avoided downloading it or reading any of the above reviews or previews before buying it and giving it my full attention for a lot of spins. So after I created a pretty good opinion about it, I came here and read all this. To be honest there are two trends in all of you: Half of you love it and half of you hate it. This thing alone is a pretty good evidence about the real value of this album. Cause it is common sense that works that divide people can offer many good things. You must excuse my reviews review, cause I'd like to be a bit strict with the bad words here. You guys have missed something. In the whole process of comparing with previous works and classifying and labeling the current tension of Ayreon you forgot about the feeling. Arjen again opened his heart and gave us all his feelings, personal from his current life and fictional from his dreams, and completed the circle of the Ayreon story in a masterful way. I really felt how dark this album tends to be, sad as our future and lonely as our present is. Planet Y is our mirror and it shows our ugly selves. But it keeps the beauty hidden and protected inside, like a whispered melody. In other forms of prog music, whenever a band uses simpler forms and throws away their complex music we call it art and give it numerous hearings till our eyes bleed, just to get the meaning. But in prog metal we scornfully announce that turning away from complexity equals to going mainstream. Cursed words like regressive are used in such cases. Well you missed the point. Sometimes music needs simpler forms to pass its meaning. To create that vibe inside of you. Ayreon's big achievement in 01011001 is exactly that. Every part of the story and every music-singer-melody that accompanies it fit perfectly. Songs that look poor are intentionally left like that. Give it more spins and it will evolve. We did that for many others in here, didn't we? Not to mention that some of those didn't deserve it in the end... Accusations such as repetition and safeness are erroneous. Voices are treated differently here, being more accurate to their roles. The characters from planet Y are crawling like ghosts from another direction, creating questions and passing judges. Some instruments are used more or less than the average Ayreon fan likes. Is this safe? I am a big fan of Ayreon (you already guessed that :) ) but some passages surprised me. Many times the music in here takes a different direction from the obvious, exploring new paths. So it is more well directed and well put than safe. Complete in many ways. The thing is that Mr L. used elements from his music but created an album that left the flock of his previous works. Yes, goth-folk melodies, muted power chords and operatic vocals are extremely used in the last 20 years, but that pillars of our music are unimpaired in our hearts. Otherwise let's put Ayreon in post metal and start giving it 1 star in all our future reviews. Although I believe that he may surprise us in every category that we 'll put him. To close this, I agree to one thing. All these exceptional musicians, these great singers with the amazing Jorn Lande (yes I know he reminds me of a couple of great guys but he is by far the best damned voice of our days) in the center, a story that goes full circle and questions our modern errors and music that speaks to your heart, compose a recipe. It's the formula of a masterpiece. Keep it up, Mr.L, and don't take your pills!!