 |
 |
 |
› Ayreon - 01011001
A power metal opera…because power metal isn’t overblown, pretentious and heterosexuality-questioning as it is… 01011001 is the binary form of the number 89, which is the ASCII code for the letter Y which is the name of the planet the protagonists of the story come from (cheers Wikipedia). Its also the most irrelevant faux intellectual name I’ve come across in along time, blowing anything by Meshuggah clean out the water. The brainchild of some Dutch guy called Arjen Anthony Lucassen, this project features umpteen metal stars such as Thomas England of Evergrey, Hansi Kursch of Blind Guardian, a hilariously smug and chubby looking Michael Romeo of Symphony X, a rather out of place Ed Warby of Gorefest, and every power metal fanboy’s prime masturbatory fantasy, the ubiquitous Simone Simons of Epica.
I would attempt to describe what musical delights this project has in stock for the listener, but you can probably imagine straight off from one look at the “cast”. You get your fast rocky uber-mediocre meatloaf-esque quasi-heavy beginning before (during the first song) everything slows right down, and then comes predictable male-female vocal play offs, stuff trying to sound epic but failing, slowness, 80s style keyboard solos, more slowness, lyrics detailing “reaching the end” and “was it all in vain???” kind of thing, even more slowness, shit drumming, outdated synth effects, melodies you’ve heard a billion times before, slowness, and the end/ release. The worse thing was the sheer magnitude of this turd. 2 CDs and almost 2 hours of slow mediocrity, but it felt like so much longer…the whole time hoping the next song would be faster, or just good, different. It was an experience akin to entering a public toilets desperate for a shit and frantically searching for a decent cubical, only to find that every one you try is smeared in feces, seamen, piss and littered with needles, and the resulting horror as you realize you are going to either have to shit yourself or just accept fate and probably catch AIDs taking a shit, after it becomes apparent that there are no befouled cubicles left.
Although it really doesn’t deserve it, this release will probably garner a fair few sales, simply because of the scale of musicians featured and their fans that will subsequently swarm to it. There were a couple of moments that may have been acceptable…even decent on a CD with more varied relevant material, however this was like a whole CD of those token overblown pseudo-epic tracks found on most albums that you normally skip. Just……..no.
2/10
Joe Butler
|
|
|