Ayreon are a one man band with a line up consisting solely of Arjen Lucasson as the only permanent member. Drummer Ed Warby is the only other person to appear on every Ayreon album. Each Ayreon album also has completely different guest musicians and guest singers to add to the line up. The guests tend to come either from the worlds of Metal or Progressive Rock, although not exclusively and people from a wide variety of musical backgrounds have previously guested on an Ayreon album.

Before Ayreon, Arjen was the guitarist for the long forgotten Heavy Metal bands Vengeance and Bodine. The bands split up because of line up changes and an unfriendly post-grunge commercial climate. Arjen then embarked upon a solo career that included recording an album of cover versions of classic 60s and 70s songs called “Strange Hobby” that sounds (musically but not vocally) almost like the precursor to Ayreon that it was. Maybe it was a reaction against the musical climate of the day, or maybe because he sensed that he wasn’t going to be able to make albums for very much longer because of the changing musical climate, but Arjen Lucasson then took a very risky and potentially career threatening decision – he was going to do whatever he wanted on his next album (which turned out to be Ayreon’s first).

One of the effects of this is that Ayreon have always been that little bit eccentric, not to mention every Record Company marketing department’s worst nightmare. Everything on every Ayreon album is a product of one person’s imagination, and it is an imagination that refuses to be hampered by the limits of other people’s narrow mindedness or the fickleness of fashion. Arjen follows his muse wherever that may lead and it has lead so far to a barmy but brilliant cocktail of different musical worlds that had previously refused to mix quite like they do in Ayreon; to Sci-fi, Merlin the Magician and Electric Castles. This is not a band that will ever enhance your street cred because, lets face it, less cool simply doesn’t exist than Prog Metal, Science Fiction, or having any sort of content or musical talent in your music to most people today. It is reassuring to discover that Arjen seems to take himself about as seriously as Dr Who does and is capable of having a laugh at the expense of his own Science Fiction obsession in the trailer for his “The Human Equation” album..

Arjen combines in Ayreon every style of music that he personally likes - Progressive Rock, Progressive Metal, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Musicals, The Beatles, and Folk music among others - making Ayreon very diverse in terms of the range of sounds and styles on offer. He also cares not a jot about whether what he does is thought of by others as being Metal or not and casts his net far wider than the Metal scene for both influences and collaborators. The result of this is that Ayreon quite often don’t sound like a Metal band at all, and even when they do they often have something that is intrinsically “unmetal” going on in their music most of the time. It is probably safe to assume that tr00 metal warriors like Manowar would not approve of this at all.

Indeed, Ayreon are rarely particularly heavy, and their sound is firmly rooted in the more melodic end of the Metal spectrum. The Metal part of Ayreon’s music is overwhelmingly derived from and reminiscent of Traditional Heavy Metal and Progressive Metal, and you are simply not going to hear Black, Death, Thrash, or even Power Metal influences in Ayreon, so if that is what you are looking for then you may want to look elsewhere. The main generalisations that can be made about the Ayreon sound is that first of all Ayreon songs are always melodic - extremely melodic – and are also usually very atmospheric. Analogue keyboards that are very reminiscent of 70’s Prog rock bands are very commonly used and are often very prominent in the mix, and the guitar sound used is generally similar to that heard in 70s Classic Rock and 80’s.Heavy Metal. They do have what could generally be described as a retro sound that can bring to mind various bands of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, although one that is updated and with modern standards of production and sound engineering. Unlike most other bands that are said to have a retro sound, Ayreon don’t really pay homage to just one or two bands from the past, but have the influence of literally dozens and dozens of different ones all mixed together to make their sound. If there is anyone out there who has ever complained that today’s rock music just doesn’t do it as good as it was done in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s then they really need to hear this band if they haven’t.

Ayreon songs often sound a little bit “spacey”, not only through the use of sounds that sounded futuristic back in the 70s, but also because they often have an unhurried air – getting to the next verse or chorus or whatever is something that is just going to have to happen in it’s own time. A useful comparison with a band that even Prog Rock Newbies are bound to have heard would be with Pink Floyd, who were similarly able to build an atmosphere through having perfect timing and not being in too much of a hurry to get to the chorus. There are also many instrumental solos in Ayreon – both long ones and short ones. These are usually more melodic than flashy, although there are a few very impressive technical workouts scattered through the Ayreon discography as well. Arjen is a very good guitarist and is responsible for some of these solos, but he also invites some of the most gifted players from other bands to contribute a solo or 2 to Ayreon as well. It isn’t just guitar and keyboard solos though, as all manner of instruments get to solo in Ayreon.

It is in the use of guest vocalists on every single Ayreon song that the guests really make themselves very noticeable. Arjen does sing on a few Ayreon songs, but he doesn’t rate himself highly as a singer, and instead prefers to draft in singers from other bands to provide vocals. He seems to have a particular liking for the clean Rock/ Metal style of singing with clear and melodic, but also powerful, vocals. Arjen has a talent both for finding just the right singer to sing the song that he has written, and also for making the most out of any particular singer’s talents by writing them just the perfect song to sing for them to bring out what is best about their voice. Maybe this is one of the reasons why some of the biggest names in Melodic Metal and Progressive Rock have been persuaded to work with him before and he never seems to be short of singers that want to appear on an Ayreon album.

Having all of these different singers on an album, combined with Ayreon’s melodic, eclectic and progressive approach to music lends itself perfectly to telling stories, which is precisely what Ayreon do. Only one Ayreon album (the second one) is not a concept album. Arjen is a Science Fiction fan, and as Ayreon is all about what he likes, most of the albums have a Science fiction theme. The only one that doesn’t is the most recent one The Human Equation (except for a bit right at the end that Arjen says he just couldn’t resist). It is the sheer diversity of sounds and styles on offer that is what the first-time Ayreon listener will first notice. This is something that is central to the Ayreon ethos and which cannot really be ignored while talking about them. Listening to Ayreon typically involves a musical journey through all of these different styles and sounds. A folk part evolves into a Progressive Rock part, which evolves into Heavy Metal and then back again etc. The genius of Ayreon is that it all starts to sound like the most natural thing in the world after a few listens.

It should be pointed out that Ayreon can quite often take a few listens to get into, and people who are more used to bands that regard 10 different versions of the same song as being an album may find it all terribly confusing. There is also the simple fact that not all Metal fans may actually like The Beatles, Progressive Rock or Folk Music much (and similarly not all Beatles fans may like Metal much), so while many Metal fans may like the heavier parts, along then comes some folk or atmospheric bit to totally ruin it all for them, and for many non-Metal fans it may well be the other way around. This is one of the reasons why Ayreon are not likely to be heading for a chart near you anytime soon, despite them having something for (almost) everyone within their repertoire - the very diversity of Ayreon’s music can mean that few people will like everything that Ayreon do on first listen, and there is also the possibility that being introduced to the band by hearing the “wrong” Ayreon song for their tastes will put a potential Ayreon fan off from checking them out further. It was my experience and I have heard from many others that it was also their experience as well, that I started off liking just some of Ayreon’s songs and gradually liked the others more and more of them the more that I heard them.

My personal top recommendations are “The Human Equation” and “Into the Electric Castle”, both of which are double albums of wall to wall brilliance. Another thing that they have in common is that both feature dialogue singing with more than one singer on each song, and have the same cast of singers singing as different characters in the story on different songs throughout the albums. The other Ayreon albums have a number of different singers, but with one singer per song, each singing a different song instead.

Once you have those the next one that I would get is the first Ayreon album “The Final Experiment”. The recently released special edition of that album comes with a bonus CD of semi-acoustic versions of some of the songs from that album, and the album is worth buying just for that alone. I would next recommend the Universal Migrator albums that continue the concept of the first album in the dystopian future that The Final Experiment originated from. There were originally 2 Universal Migrator albums, one heavy one (“Flight of The Migrator”) and one mellow one (“The Dream Sequencer”). You can now buy both together as a double CD. These albums contain some of Ayreon’s best songs, although the quality is not maintained as consistently throughout them in my opinion as it is in “The Human Equation” and “Into the Electric Castle”.

The second Ayreon album “Actual Fantasy” is probably the one that is going to be of least interest to Metal fans so I would buy that one last. It is more electronic sounding and atmospheric with the epic metal influences of the other albums mostly absent. It is also the only one that is not a concept album. There is another album that you may comes across called “Ayreonauts Only” which features out-takes and alternative versions of Ayreon songs. As the name suggests it is intended more for die hard Ayreon fans than for the merely curious.

As well as Ayreon, and appearing on many other artist’s albums, Arjen also has 2 other projects that are spin-offs from Ayreon that fans of Ayreon should certainly not ignore. The first is Ambeon, which is a contraction of “Ambient Ayreon” and who have one album out called “Fate of a Dreamer”. In contrast to Ayreon with it’s multiple singers per album, all of the vocals for this album were done by one singer – Astrid van der Veen (who was only 14 at the time). The sound here is similar to Ayreon but is mellower, more atmospheric and with all of the Metal influences removed. It is a very good album, and worth buying if you like the mellower, more atmospheric side of Ayreon’s sound.

The second project – Star One - is almost the exact opposite. This is instead a heavier, more Metal, version of Ayreon. They released 2 albums: The first one, called “Space Metal”, is a studio double album with songs that are each inspired by a different Science Fiction TV series, film, or book. The second one is a double live CD/DVD called “Live on Earth” that features live version of both songs from “Space Metal” and Ayreon. Both Star One albums are absolutely amazing and are essential purchases for any fan of Melodic Metal.

Line-Up:
Arjen Anthony Lucasson [Guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals]

Guest Musicians:
Ed Warby [All Drums on all albums]

Some of the better known previous guest vocalists include:
Andi Deris (Helloween); Anneke van Giersbergen (The Gathering); Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden); Damian Wilson (ex-Threshold); Devin Townsend; Fabio Lione (Rhapsody); Fish (solo, ex-Marillion); Floor Jansen (After Forever); Heather Findlay (Mostly Autumn); James LaBrie (Dream Theater, solo); Lana Lane (solo); Marcela Bovio (Elfonia); Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth); Mike Baker (Shadow Gallery); Russell Allen (Symphony X); Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation) and Timo Kotipelto (Stratovarius).

For the full list of both vocalists and musicians go to:
http://www.arjenlucassen.com/discography/artist_overview.php