ACTUAL FANTASY

Great album, great music, Arjen's second release and I must say it wasn't a faliure, but it wasn't his best. Ayreon has become one of my favorite bands eversense I picked up Electric Castle and Human Equation. I will not lie, this album is great, Abbey of Synn is actaully one of the great songs of Arjens work. He has a lot of good songs here, sure their not his best, but beating Electric Castle and Human Equation isn't an easy task. Still, this album isn't a complete story like all his other albums are, it's just 8 songs bearing 8 different stories. Some of them are Arjen's own ideas, some are dedicated from other stories he always liked. All the songs have qualities to make this a great album! This album isn't something to start off with Ayreon, but it wont hurt if you give it a listen. You'll probably hear it and say, this isn't bad, and if he has better then by golley! I'm going to give it a listen! I haven't heard the revisited, I don't know if it's enhanced or anybetter, but Actual fantasy is probably Arjens poorest set of works, and it's still great and incredible! You could almost relate this piece to Dream Theater's Falling into Infinity, not music wise, but sucess wise, it's arguably the worst album but it has enough qualities to say it's worth listening to! The songs are great, all bearing stories of thier own as I explianed before, but they all have good moments. This is also before Arjen decided to use really symphonic insturments instead of cheesy imitations from synthesizer. Believe me, it's still good though not his best.