Reviews by kuvien

In this more synth- and electronic-driven prog-rock opera, Lucassen picks up the narrative where Ayreon, thwarted by Merlin, failed to save humanity. Now it's 2084, and the final war on Earth has wiped out everyone except for one last human living in a Martian colony. He uses the Dream Sequencer machine to go back and visit different eras of human history. This album is yet another essential element in the overarching mythology.

I got the limited edition red vinyl double album with a comic book re-telling this cheesy-ass "spooky" Halloween story about falsetto rich-boy ghosts, sassy dominatrix angels of death, and servants girls stupid enough to believe the ghost stories to kill herself. Like other Ayreon albums, this is unapologetic cheese. Unlike other Ayreon albums, he's not really going for melodic hooks but rather establishing an atmosphere.

Though this isn't part of the Planet Y mythology, the music is as good as anything Lucassen has done. Here's the story of an idiot-savant who accomplishes what his dead old dad can't: figure out the theory of everything.

This album is epic in its scope and oh-so fun in its approach. Here we have the story of a race overrun by AI and have to flee Alpha with only a remnant of their species. They end up on another planet, a water world they name Y, and have to adapt to live in that radically different environment. And they do, with the help of a chemical called 'the Source'. But at the end of the story, you know that the poison of that original rise of the machines lives on, because the Alphans are taken over by machines once again and enslaved, and this time there's no escape...as we hear on earlier Ayreon albums.

The Human Equation, or The Comatose Cuck.

Lucassen's vision starts here, but the narrative itself is in medias res, following the classic Greek model to great effect. The story opens with humans at the end of humanity's timeline sending messages, in the form of visions of the future, into the past to warn humanity of its impending doom. The visions are picked up by Ayreon, a dark-ages bard in the time of Camelot. This Ayreon's third best album, in my opinion, the Medieval Folk Metal perfectly placed.

Regarded by most as Ayreon’s best album, this medieval space odyssey encapsulates the entire Forever mythology, of which the beginning of sentient life on Earth is but one small episode. The music here is beautiful, exciting, and engaging, but because it is earnest, it is often view by more jaded listeners as cheesy. It’s not, though, instead being a sci-fi rock opera sung by eight travelers from different periods of human history and by Forever, the super-intelligent communal alien entity who orchestrates this whole adventure. This album could inspire a D&D campaign based on it.

Lucassen skips back in the narrative to a time before humans ever existed. An alien race from planet Y shoot their seed into space and fertilize Earth, but not before accidentally wiping out the dinosaurs. Oops. So much virtuosity and creativity on this album.

Look. I like this album as much as the next crate-digging johnny-come-lately music nerd, but calling this album the Haitian Bitches Brew is exaggeration beyond the most ridiculous utterance by a hyperbolical fiend. And I think you can guess what "Kréyol djaz" is just by extrapolating from saying the words out loud, but just in case... "Creole jazz", which, of course, means it's jazz blended with French Caribbean music. Throw in some Haitian vodou drumming, and you get this one-and-done album by a Haitian composer recording with his ensemble in NYC.

After only two years with the band, the founding member of Soft Machine went solo (before joining Gong), and here on his debut album he explores the theme of time, especially through the passage of the seasons, specifically from calm spring to reckless winter. What starts as a pastoral exploration of a beautiful girl swinging from a tree swing on the first day of spring ends in wild autumn winds blowing her away.

This will never be one of my cherished albums, but it has its place in my collection. It’s got some similarities to Mutual Benefit’s sound, like the gentle waves that flow among the serene islands of a tropical archipelago. Try this album first thing on a Sunday morning, especially if you had a bad night out the night before. This’ll help. By “Bird”, you should be out of bed and on your way to a lovely day.

Every woman has her breaking point. Some break down immediately, at the slightest sign of trouble, but others soldier on with a smile on their faces. Life deals them a reverse, they shrug and keep going. Happy-go-lucky. Moving on to the next challenge, the next relationship. But every woman has her breaking point. Eventually there’ll be one too many heartbreaks, one too many disappointments, and the end of the album sounds nothing like the beginning.

Leave it to one of the Animals of the Collective to do something cute like release an entire album reversed. People wanted to hear what the music sounded like normally, so a bootleg of the album in reverse immediately hit the streets, but since it's a reverse of a reverse, it's just music played normally. ffs. I almost care enough to find out what this sounds like reversed. Almost. But I'll just stick with this re-reversed version. It's got that weird acoustic delicacy and experimentation I like, with just the right number of bizarre whirr-whirr-whirr moments sprinkled in among the piano notes. The vocal manipulations are just wonderfully bizarre.

I instantly recommended this to my best friend who loves emotional guitar-driven music made by white men, but he'd already heard it. Oh the shame! I wouldn't have recommended it if he'd kept his ratings on RYM updated. Fuck. Now who's emotional?

How delightfully anachronistic! This is a charming example of how to take Medieval folk styles and blend them with contemporary sensibilities, especially in the close harmonies and the flutes.

Though some might find the male harmonies annoying, I like them, thinking they add to the warm, rustic feel of the album. Along with the mellow, traditional framework of the music, the flutes are a delight as they create a festive atmosphere.

Truly one of the worst albums known to god, angel, longaevi, man, beast, vegetable, or mineral.

A great collection of actually engaging atmospheric post-metal that suddenly goes electronic randomly at one point. I also like how different heretofore unlooked-for vocals come in at some points.

I think people would like this more if it had in fact been (like it sounds) a soundtrack for a video game. I'd play it, and I can imagine the butterflies and grasshoppers in the green fields and the sun on the water when sailing from one landmass to another.

This is hyphenated jazz. Let's circle back to that in a moment. This is an album that wears its purpose on its sleeve, for the musicians make no secret of their intent. They wanted to express their frustration at the unstoppable march of climate change as well as their anger at the contemporary political climate during the COVID pandemic, so what better way, I guess, than deconstructing the roots music of American heritage? Not in order to be outré but rather to play with existing forms of the culture at large, to collaborate and to evoke that excitement musicians feel at exploring new possibilities. Mandolin, violin, upright bass... and electronics come together here, just as the Jewish, Japanese, and Mexican aspects of the musicians' identities should not be ignored.