{mosimage}Dutch musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen assembles a great metal opera in this double CD that counts with very special guests from the heavy metal scene.
Not a long time ago we reviewed in FREE! Magazine the awaited third part of Avantasia, and in the same line now is the turn of another of the best metal operas released in the last years: the new Ayreon ´s CD (6th conceptual album in total) with a title encrypted in a binary code: O1011001.
After 10 years of the release of Into the Electric Castle, Lucassen reaffirms that he still has a lot of creativity to show the world. And in the same way that in the Scarecrow, the list of participants involved in the project is also astonishing: Tom S. Englund, Hansi Kursch (for whom I feel a special weakness, being a great Blind Guardian fan since my teenage years), Anneke van Giersbergen, Steve Lee or Jonas Renske are some of the big names that are lending their musical skills to the project.
A musical tour de force where different metal styles get mixes in a harmonic way. It seems that the trend nowadays in the industry is developing towards eclecticism. A decade ago musicians were not so eager to experiment, having the feat of losing the fidelity of their audience, but it is coming a time in metal when it looks that the key to surviving is just to be able to not to stick to one single and defined style. Enjoy with exceptional pieces like River of Time or The Sixt Exctintion, where all the singers lend their voices. A must have for the lovers of good conceptual and epic metal.
Rating 5/5.