UNIVERSAL MIGRATOR, PART 2: FLIGHT OF THE MIGRATOR

'The Universal Migrator Part Two: Flight Of The Migrator' is the fifth album of Ayreon, the musical project of the Dutch songwriter, producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen and was released in 2000. The line up on the album is Arjen Lucassen, Ed Warby, Lana Lane, Russel Allen, Damian Wilson, Ralf Scheepers, Andi Deris, Bruce Dickinson, Fabio Lione, Timo Kotipetto, Robert Soeterboek, Ian Parry, Erik Norlander, Michael Romeo, Oscar Holleman, Gary Wehrkamp, Rene Merkelbach, Clive Nolan, Keiko Kumagai and Peter Siedlach.

'Flight Of The Migrator' represents the second part of 'The Universal Migrator', with the first part named 'The Universal Migrator Part One: 'The Dream Sequencer'. 'Flight Of The Migrator' contrasts with its counterpart, featuring a musical atmospheric feeling much heavier and with a very powerful guitar driven metal feel. Both albums were released simultaneously, but separately. He believed his fans would be fundamentally divided into two groups, prog or heavy metal fans. 'The Dream Sequencer' was to the prog enthusiasts and 'Flight Of The Migrator' to the metal fans.

'Flight Of The Migrator' is an album with another significance in Lucassen's almost 25 years long musical career. This is Ayreon's breakthrough album in the progressive metal style, especially because of its unimaginable line up of vocalists. Some of these singers are Russel Allen from Symphony X, Damian Wilson from both previous Ayreon's albums and Threshold, Ralf Scheepers from Primal Fear, Andi Deris from Helloween, Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden and Timo Kotipelto from Stratovarius. The list of musicians on the album is equally impressive with Erik Norlander and Clive Nolan on keyboards, Michael Romeo of Symphony X and Gary Wehrkamp of Shadow Gallery on guitars, and the long time drummer and friend of Arjen, Ed Warby. Needless to say that the progressive rock community was taken by storm when they heard the involvement of all these talented musicians, and thus, 5 years after its inception, Ayreon finally made its name known throughout the world. I really believe that there are some really amazing moments here.

Lyrically, 'Flight Of The Migrator' continues the story of the final living human being, the colonist on Mars, and his decision to go even further back in time. Using the Dream Sequencer machine, he travels just before the Universe was formed, even before the Big Bang explosion that creates the entire Universe. So, he observes the creation of the first soul, the Universal Migrator. It was from that soul that all the others were formed. He follows the soul as it travels through countless astronomical entities, such as quasars, pulsars, supernovas and black holes, and finally he came directly towards our Solar System. The colonist's ambitious by time travelling with the Dream Sequencer, resulted in his death. However, his eternal self receives a message from the Universal Migrator, that he is now the new Migrator.

Musically, 'Flight Of The Migrator' sounds very different from its first counterpart, 'The Dream Sequencer'. As I wrote before, when he was composing 'The Universal Migrator', Lucassen decided to make these twin albums separately, the metal and the non metal albums. Despite this is the metal part of 'The Universal Migrator' there are a lot of many other influences on it like rock and progressive rock, and there's also some power metal in almost every track. It can be confirmed by the list of guest singers when you can see the names of some of the best and most recognized heavy prog metal vocalists of our days. The music reminds mostly of Star One, another musical project of Arjen. The songs in here have actual variety, with beats and rhythms, and interesting instrumental working and all of that high-class stuff that makes an album actually interesting to listen to. The increase in both overall tempo and variety in sounds, there's a lot more guitar work and interesting keyboard arrangements on this album, makes the album an actual treat to listen to and firmly establish Ayreon as progressive metal, instead of the more melodious progressive rock, as Part I was.

Conclusion: With 'Flight Of The Migrator', Lucassen concluded 'The Universal Migrator' project, with the heaviest part of the concept. When I say heavy, I mean heavy by Ayreon's standards, especially if we compared it with the first part 'The Dream Sequencer', this is really a heavy album. However and in reality, Lucassen's music has never been about being musically heavy. He has always strived for making great compositions and beautiful melodies to the highly creative concepts he comes up with. Anyway, 'Flight Of The Migrator' has great compositions and solid performances all around. It still is a very solid release overall with some killer moments, both, musically and lyrically. All tracks are compelling without exceptions and 'Flight Of The Migrator' is very similar to Lucassen's progressive space metal side project Star One, which is also very highly recommended. So, this is a great album and I recommend it to everyone. If you aren't yet a progressive metal fan and you want to start listening to progressive metal music, 'Flight Of The Migrator' can certainly be a great starting point, or Ayreon or any other Lucassen's projects, in general.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Share this AYREON review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to VianaProghead
• Report this review (#1787842)
• Buy AYREON music online with PA partners
• Show all AYREON MP3/Stream
• Go to AYREON page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Universal Migrator, Part 2: Flight Of The Migrator page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for AYREON related discussions