Ayreon - Welcome To The New Dimension (Into The Electric Castle) 1998
The track Zhanteimi chose here is basically an intro with some synths and a narrator. Doesn't do a lot for me to be honest.
Bit of a strange choice (accidental?), so I went ahead and picked a random track from the same album:
Ayreon - Isis And Osiris (Into The Electric Castle) 1998
Ayreon pretty much always has a bunch of vocalists guesting as various characters in these cheesy scifi-prog-concept-album-stories. Anneke Van Giersbergen figures fairly prominently in this song, so that automatically makes me like it more than I otherwise would have, but overall, it's not exactly up my alley. There's just something about how Ayreon usually approaches the telling of these stories that is, frankly, dorky as ****. If you've got a strong musical stomach, try listening to the entirety of that Dream Theater album named "The Astonishing".
Couldn't do it? Well, I thought so. This Ayreon album isn't quite like that, but it's the same problems that plague it, just not to the same extent. There's some legit good riffs and musical themes peppered around. I like this better than other things I've heard by Ayreon. It's just not really my thing. I don't hate it. At least it's got a dash of Giersbergen <3, and the production is pretty good. I like how the bass has some good presence and weight to it. Some of the guitar sounds and keyboard sounds play together quite well too.
Also, **** Russell Allen.
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