How does Arjen Lucassen get all these people to come guest on his projects? Discarding for now the possibility that he has a couple of secret identical twins who, in true romantic comedy movie style, chip in with songwriting, arrangement, producing, logistics, and general schmoozing, I'd say he's generally a fairly busy mofo. I can't help but speculate on his MO, though. Wonder if it involves phone calls like this:

(translated from Swedish, obviously)

“Hey, Dan! Dan Gildenlow?”

“Who the hell is this?”

“It's Arjen, man! Arjen Lucassen! ”

“Ah...the 'concept album' guy. Right.”

“Hey, so I was thinking...you want to come hang out?”

“Uhh...no, I don't think so. I'm busy contemplating the nature of the cosmos...”

“Awesome! I did that for Universal Migrator, man! Come on, drop by! I've got sandwiches!”

“Sandwiches? Hmm...”

Some time later...

“Hey, where the hell are those sandwiches?!”

"On their way. Listen, could you sing 'There must be a way to revive our past' into the mike?”

“I like the energy! But the mike, Dan. Into the mike.”



How else could you explain a star-studded lineup like that? Besides the PoS frontman, there's the mighty Jorn Lande, Hansi Kursch from Blind Guardian, Tom Englund from Evergrey, Ty Tabor from King's X, Simone Simons from Epica, Jonas Renkse from Katatonia, Michael Romeo from Symphony X, Tomas Bodin from The Flower Kings, Derek Sherinian (who's equally capable at lassoing a bunch of guest heroes for his own albums) and a bunch of other prominent dudes and dudettes. If you don't know at least a few of the above people and bands, I'm going to have to assume you accidentally stumbled onto this review while googling for 'sandwiches'.

So in order to accommodate all these people, you'd naturally need some space. No kidding – this album clocks in at over 1 hour and 40 minutes. You know what a person could accomplish in that time? Neither do I, I've never really accomplished anything worth talking about. But it's still a hell of a lot of time! By the time The Sixth Extinction comes around, it's hard not to think, “Sixth? I'm pretty sure a whole lot more has gone extinct since I started listening to this.”

And there's the main problem. This juggernaut dwarfs even Therion's latest effort, boasting a massive intimidating playing length, and it's near impossible to pay attention throughout. Say what you will, there's a great feeling about listening to an album end to end, and you're unlikely to be doing that with this one all that often. It doesn't help that the quality level keeps fluctuating – there are several parts that are total gold, coming together in a perfect blend of operatic pomp, ethereal harmonies and iron-fist-pumping metal. But there's also a load of stuff which leans more towards filler, and you can see songs being unmercifully stretched to lengths over 10 minutes with not much compelling evidence that they justified such inhumane treatment.

Around the time of Flight of the Migrator, Ayreon tended to be a little more fun and to the point, not to mention a lot more boisterous. The Human Equation marked a change to a style of songwriting that was focused on vocals. That sort of worked, since the guest vocalists there were remarkably varied and the contrast of their distinct styles was easier to catch. This new one seems a little less focused in comparison. And while their themes were always goofy (Into the Electric Castle – sheesh!), the rampant technophobia on display here is too much. The worst offender is Connect the Dots, which tries to paint a dismal picture of an average joe whose life revolves around technology. You know, I'd think any household where the dad knows what games his kids are playing, let alone plays them himself, is close to a Utopian setting. And yeah, we have to leave our computers on overnight to 'download all the latest files'. You know why? Because our connection speed is STILL TOO FUCKING SLOW! If we were really technologically inundated, those bitchin' files would be done downloading before you could say 01011001.

Peeves aside, I'll grudgingly admit that this is a good album. There's just too much talent on board for it not to be. All the vocalists put in expectedly exemplary performances and unless you have a long-standing bias against any of them, there shouldn't be anything to complain about. As for the songwriting and instrumentation, when it clicks, it's quite killer – unfortunately, there's plenty of time when they're either wanking around aimlessly or going through the motions, so that tends to detract from the overall experience. The whole album needs at least a couple of spins from end to end to really start appreciating the good parts and (equally important) figuring out which parts you might want to skip through the next time around. So, while Arjen may have bitten off a bit more than he could chew this time around, you've still got to marvel at the guy's jaws. Unless...Ayreon is just a way for him to hook up with metal chicks.



If so, 5/5 for effort and conviction!



Label: InsideOut Music
Year of release: 2008