OUT IN THE REAL WORLD

This EP from Arjen Lucassen's Stream of Passion project contains a single edit of the song "Out in the Real World",from their debut album Embrace the Storm,and three non album tracks. The first two bonus tracks aren't even new tracks,but are re-workings of songs from Ayreon albums."Computer Eyes" is from the Ayreon album Actual Fantasy,and while it still has the feel of the Ayreon song,the mellow vocals of Edmund Reekers suits the song better than Bovio's. The second bonus track is "Pain" from the Human Equation album and is definitely not an improvement on the original.It has the softer female vocals of Bovio and sister Diana(who provides additional vocals on all three bonus tracks)but the Ayreon track has the subtle variations that result from four vocalists participating.Pretty hard to compete against James Labrie,Heather Findlay,Devin Townsend and Devon Graves. The last track is a cover of Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks".The bluesy Zeppelin feel is gone,along with the mouth organ parts,and this song has basically been turned into a prog metal track.This cover is the best song on the ep,and includes an excellent guitar solo by Lori Linstruth 2 Stars,I would recommend it to fans of Stream of Passion and Arjen completionists,but there is nothing really new or exciting here.

Have for sure that this will not be a huge review.

Today i saw that the new album and DVD of Stream of Passion have been released, and probably i will but them, so because of that i decided to review today their first and only studio album so far, and this single.

Of course because it`s a single, it has less songs and it takes less time to review it, as usual Arjen Lucassen decided to add some "old" songs here, including a cover (as usual again) of one of his favorite bands, Led Zeppelin, giving to the single a special taste and different kind of songs for different kind of music lovers, anyway all the songs have their particular sound.

"Out in the Real World" is the title of this single and as you can imagine of the first song, it appears in Embrace the Storm album, and it`s great, but here it was edited for commercial meanings, anyway it sounds good.

"Computer Eyes", do you remember that song?, oh yes, it`s the same song who Edward Reekers sang , so this could be named an Ayreon`s cover, Arjen covering himself or something, well but of course it has Marcelas`personal voice and touch, and also it`s great.

"Pain" (Motion Personified Alpha) i wrote that because i remember Devin Towsend saying that words immediatey, im a huge Human Equation lover, so this time it was not a mistake, but not the best choice put this new version song here, not bad, but Day 3 is incomparable.

"When the Levee Breaks" who doesn`t know that title?, i remember in one of Human Equation singles they performance No Quarter another Led cover which sounds quite original and good, this time i share the same feeling, it sound great! (of course the Zeppelin one is much better and memorable) but this was a good effort.

A bit more than 15 minutes, so you can put this album, take a soda and rest for a quarter, it`s good, but of course the grade must be 2 stars, fans and collectors only.