The Human Equation

Jorge Antonaya- Rock United.com
15-06-2004

The Human Equation is already the sixth studio album by Arjen Lucassen under the Ayreon moniker. As most of his previous works, this is both a concept album and a rock opera, a genre that nowadays is well alive, and Lucassen is not a lesser part in its come back. The album tells the story of a business man (James LaBrie) that falls into a coma as a result of a car accident (well, at least that's the initial idea). While, at his bed, his wife (Marcela Bovio), his father (Mike Baker), and his best friend (Lucassen) fear for his life, his character encounters Fear (Mikael Åkerfeldt), Agony (Devon Graves), Rage (Devin Townsend), Pride (Magnus Ekwall), Love (Heather Findlay), Reason (Eric Clayton), and Passion (Irene Jansen) - all of whom are fighting for attention within the consciousness of the injured man. Will he become a different person as a result of this? Well, you'll have to dig into the story to find the solution.

Musically, The Human Equation is an outstanding blend of different styles, from folk to extreme metal, with progressive metal, melodic rock, pop, and everything else you can imagine. It is incredible how he (Lucassen) manage to give every part of the story the musical environment it needs. More so since, allegedly, he wrote the music first and only then started to write the story and the subsequent lyrics. Absolutely amazing are the vocal performances of each and every singer involved, from James LaBrie, (singing in quite a different way to what we are used to in Dream Theater), to Arjen Lucassen himself. Specially noteworthy is the discovering of Mexican female singer Marcela Bovio who did a great job as the wife of the main character. Lucassen has succeeded in getting the best out of every vocalist, giving each character the performance, feeling and technique needed. The production is also close to perfection, not easy due to the pretty wide dynamics of the music. Pointing out any highlight is difficult partly due to the overall great quality of the tracks and partly due to the nature of the album, a concept one, in which a separate song usually doesn't put you in the mood of the whole story, however, almost any track in there could do it problem free. Day Four: Mystery, Day Five: Voices, (with storming keyboard driven metal parts), Day Eight: School (with operatic choirs) or the single Day Eleven: Love, an amazing mid-tempo with amazing backing vocals. Some might claim that the second disc, (forgot to mention it, but this is a double album), is somehow weaker than the first one, but to me this is only due to the development of the story, and tracks like Day Twelve: Trauma, Day Fourteen: Pride, Day Fifteen: Betrayal (with an astonishing performance by Irene Jansen), Day Sixteen: Loser (great vocals full of both emotion and humor by Mike Baker), Day Eighteen: Realization (symphonic rock as good as it gets), or the final crescendo in Day Twenty: Confrontation, prove that this second disc is far from weak at all.

It would be pretty unfair forgetting about the instrumental performances in this album as well. Of course, the main role here is carried by Lucassen himself, but as important for the final result are Ed Warby's drums, keyboards by Ken Hesley (Uriah Heep), who did an excelent solo in Day Sixteen: Loser, Joos van den Broek (Sun Caged, Star One and now in After Forever), Martin Orford, and Oliver Wakeman. Also the acoustic instrumentists Robert Baba (violin), Jeroen Goossens (flute), Marieke van der Heyden (cello) and John McManus (flute, whistle), did all a great job. The final result is nothing but pure ear candy for music lovers. This is glorious and simply a ROCK OPERA (with capital letters).