Ayreon
„Into the Electric Castle“
Progressive Rock/Metal. Limitierte Doppel-CD. 1998

After "The Final Experiment" in 1995, Arjen Lucassen followed up thematically with "Into the Electric Castle" (the name of Arjen's recording studio) in 1998. 6 albums form a long narrative thread of Forever, an ancient extraterrestrial civilization. I don't want to spoil too much. Just this much: on this album, 8 people from different eras are abducted into an in-between world without space and time. A voice makes the protagonists go through various tests. At the end, the voice reveals itself.

The line-up of guest musicians is diverse. Anneke van Giersbergen (ex The Gatherring), Fish (ex Marillion), Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation), Damian Wilson (ex Threshold), Clive Nolan (Pendragon, Arena) and others. Each of the musicians is in a class of its own. Into the Electric Castle is Ayreon's first double album, resulting in a playing time of 144 minutes.

Each singer has their own role. They bring the music into the brain with images. Like almost all of Ayreon's albums, this one is also a concept album. A journey through space and time, marked by pride, hate, love. All of the tests that the protagonists have to endure are connected with emotions. And the band succeeds in generating visual sound worlds.

Musically there is epic music, prog, rock, metal, spacey keyboards, lots of story, good singing. A great rock/space opera. Slowly sounds like a conclusion...

Attention! Superlatives! What Arjen Lucassen has achieved here is magnificent! Getting all the musicians under one roof and then motivating them to perform at their best. Every note is spot on, everything has been played perfectly, the lyrics are good and atmospheric. Ayreon's great strength is once again visualization, images appear in your head. Absolutely great! The album is the highlight. My recommendations are song 1, "Welcome to the New Dimension" and song 2, "Isis and Osiris". "The Desicion Tree" and "Cosmic Fusion". There's something for everyone.

Order of the albums of the “Forever” cycle, as I call it.
1995 The Final Experiment
1998 Into the Electric Castle
2000 Universal Migrator Part I „The Dream Sequencer“
2000 Universal Migrator Part II „Flight of the Migrator“
2004 The Human Equation
2008 0101100I

The photos are all from my CD. The rights to all motifs, logos, texts and fonts that can be seen in the photos are of course owned by the copyright holder.