Ayreon – 01011001

Release date: 28-01-2008; Label: Insideout music
By: Sabine van Gameren

  Ayreon, a project by the Dutch Arjan Anthony Lucassen, came up with a new album.
  Arjan Anthony Lucassen might be named as the king of prog-rock, a name he built
  up in many years with different projects. He played in the Dutch hard rock band
  Vengeance, but also released some solo work. Nowadays, he enjoys world wide
  fame as the master behind Ayreon, Ambeon, Star One and Stream of Passion.

  The first release under the name Ayreon was “The Final Experiment”
  in 1995. This was Arjan’s first rock opera. After this one, he released
  six other albums (“Universal Migrators” was released in two parts
  at the same time.) so 01011001 makes number eight.

  Arjan gets his musicians from all over the world. He is able to get persons
  from many well known bands together at one album. They are all very pleased
  to make their way to his own studio called “The Electric Castle”.
  To name a few artists who participated at 01011001: Ed Warby (Gorefest), Jonas
  Renkse (Katatonia), Jorn Lande (Masterplan), Anneke van Giersbergen (Ex-The
  Gathering), Bob Catley (Magnum), Steve Lee (Gotthard) and Hansi Kürsch
  (Blind Guarsian). These are only a few names of the many artists which can be
  heard at the album. Arjan himself, of course, can be heard as well.

  It would be madness to into detail about every song, because there is so much
  to hear and experience when you listen to an Ayreon album. When I got the CD
  in my hands for the first time, I was wondering what the name would stand for.
  I knew it was a binary code, as curious as I was I went for a search to find
  out where it stands for. I found out it stands for the number 89. Well, this
  number does not say much and with a little more searching I found that 89 is
  the ASCII-code for the letter Y. I decided I just had to put the music on; I
  would never get the secret of the name unraveled otherwise. After the first
  CD (two CD’s provide me with 102 minutes of music) I was a little skeptical.
  I heard many great things; I did not expect anything else from Mr. Lucassen,
  but somehow I expected something completely different. This first CD gave me
  the idea that I was listening to a summary of all the earlier albums. I think
  the second CD released me from these thoughts and made me see 01011001 as a
  new story, a new adventure to listen to.

  Overall, 01011001 did its job. It transferred me to a dreamy, fantasy world
  and got me really into the music and the story. The trick of Arjan Lucassen
  still works and he showed again that he is worth the title: King of prog-rock.

Links:

Ayreon Official
Ayreon MySpace