The Human Equation
Dries- DPRP
2004
What's that, did someone just yell: "best album of the year!". Must be so because I think Mister Arjen Lucassen has pulled it off. His The Human Equation is without any doubt the best of his work so far and we are probably witness to the release of a real prog/prog metal classic. Even after weeks of intensive listening and playing it over and over again my amazement has not settled down. Boy, this Ayreon album is good!
At the time Into The Electric Castle was released I was a huge Fish fan. So because Derek William Dick was featured on ITEC, I bought this album. After that I just had to buy Flight Of The Migrator and The Dream Sequencer. Ayreon had made it to my list of preferred artists so I also bought Star One without any hesitation. And that was some kind of a disappointment: let me say that that is not his best album, but from time to time I play some of his previous work.
So when we at DPRP were invited to Arjen's studio, I was very happy to be one of that team. A hospitable Arjen showed us the artwork to this upcoming album, showed his studio and more important: played us parts of The Human Equation. What also struck me at the time was that Arjen is a real prog lover and we had a lot of matches in our respective CD collections. It was like visiting a friend with the same musical preferences - watching parts of DVD's, etc.
Some critics found his previous records too polished and much of the same. If someone should say that of this album, in my opinion he knows not what he speaks of. Oh yes Ayreon's style can be found throughout the album but this is not a copy of any of the previous work. Most striking feature of this album: it's intensity. The heavier parts are rough and powerful, the folk parts are sweet and lovely, the clean progressive parts are inventive and complicated. Never a dull moment. This album is such a potpourri of styles and instruments that almost everyone will find an appealing piece of music in it. And still it is a very coherent piece of work. Screaming guitars, heavy distorted guitars, flute, violin, didgeridoo, bassoon, (not so paarpy) keyboards, cello, Hammond, mandolin and still I have not listed them all. It's like a show case of modern music but it never sounds like show-off instrument wizardry: the music is more important, always backing-up the story and atmosphere.
Maybe the best illustrations to the mix of styles is: Day Five: Voices , dark heavy guitars, violins cello and flutes in one song. And also: the first three days on the second CD: Day 12: Trauma, Day 13: Sign and Day 14: Pride. Trauma starts of as a progressive rock song after which heavier guitars and grunts(!) come in, the next part is not as heavy with nice vocal harmonies, Irene Janssen's soprano voice does the chorus. The dark voice of Eric Clayton accompanied by dark sounding music is a prelude to heavier guitars again. This song is full of contrasts in itself but an even larger contrast exists with the following track: Day 13: Sign. This track is a folk like song with a flute and the lovely voice of Heather Findlay (Mostly Autumn). Day 14: Pride is yet another style distorted guitar, radio sounds, maybe a bit like a Dream Theater song. If you set Day Seven: Hope next to that, a happy song that is on the edge of 'hilarious' you might understand what I mean.
Although Arjen Lucassen is the mastermind of this delicious treat, it is his choice of vocalist that makes it even better. All have a distinct feature to their voice, no two voices sound the same, which make it easier to follow the story-line. A number of well-known musicians also do their part.
I have left out many things - how superb James LaBrie's voice is, if he's not doing high pitched screams; how astonishing the new discovery Marcela Bovio is; the mind blowing instrumental part of Day Six: Childhood; my favourite tracks (scattered over both CD's equally); the odd build up of Day 16: Loser and the marvellous artwork of Mattias Norén. But then it would appear that I like those two vocalists above the others (which isn't true); then it would appear that only Childhood has a nice instrumental part (which isn't true); then it would appear Loser is they only original song on the album (which isn't true); then it would appear I don't like the cover artwork by Jef Bertels (which isn't true).
Saying an album is a perfect 10 is a pretty clear statement. It should not be given lightly, therefore I was not planning to give it this rating. I desperately tried to find a reasons why it did not to deserve this rating. But after two weeks of listening, putting it away for a week (did another review) and listening again for a couple of days, I cannot find anything wrong with it: this is a perfect 10. Pretty clear to me.