Ayreon - 01011001 Review

January 07, 2008

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I really, really tried to like this album. The plot, the special guests, as well as Ayreon being on the fore-front of progressive metal, it just sounded perfect to me. I was pretty dissapointed.

One of the biggest let-downs of the album is the female vocalists featuring in so many songs. I liked Ayreon’s Star One project, except the female vocalist(s) on there felt kind of over-used and awkward too. Compared to other Ayreon material, particularly ‘The Human Equation’, ‘01011001′ really doesn’t sound too different.

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The story of the album at first sounds pretty intriguing, but you realise soon it’s actually fairly sci-fi cliche.

On Planet Y, the seafaring ‘Forever’ have long ago forgone their emotions as well as becoming dependent on machines, in order to become immortal. Longing to rediscover emotions, Forever sends their DNA to planet Earth using a comet as vessel.

However, Forever’s continued meddling with humanity in order to make them evolve faster have disastrous consequence when their physical and mental evolution goes faster than their moral development : humanity starts becoming dependent on machines, they start slowly losing their emotions and worst of all heads toward the path to their own extinction.

Meh. The correlation between human’s dependancy on technology and loss of emotion doesn’t really spark any originality, It’s already been explored through ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Brave New World’.

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Couldn’t think of anything related to Ayreon, and Harrison Ford’s the next best thing…for anything.

Lame moments include “Web of Lies”, which features two internet date-site users.

“Dear Simone, sorry for the wait

I’ve seen your pics

You’re looking great”

What a boring sap. The song shouldn’t be on the album, I don’t care if it’s part of the story, which sucks too anyway.

Dear Simone, I was having lunch

I’ve seen your pics

I can’t wait to give you a donkey punch.

Much more appropriate.

The album can be analogised like the American Dream-team of Basketball in the Olympics. Everyone thinks they’ll be undefeatable, but they just couldn’t work together and got smashed.

Although Ayreon’s 01011001 features a whopping 17 guest singers and multiple instrumentalists who do an awe inspring job, the narration/story type lyrics become tiring.

Soaring virtuostic solos feature in almost every song too, unfortunately the song’s don’t seem too memorable other than a name couple. ‘The Sixth Extinction’ is a great climactic closer, and Blind Guardian’s Hansi Kursch and Pain of Salvation’s Daniel Gildenlow on ‘New Born Race’ create a catchy chorus and verses (although it still achieves being annoying with the female vocals cutting in constantly).

Unless you absolutely loved ‘The Human Equation’ and couldn’t get enough, I’d pass up and pick up some of the latest leading progressive metal albums instead - Paradise Lost, Systematic Chaos, Colors or Scarsick.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Albums, Ayreon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

20 Responses to “Ayreon - 01011001 Review”

  1. Jenifer said:

    Jan 08, 08 at 12:04 am

    What a shame you felt it necessary to spoil things for everyone else by giving away the entire plot when the album has not even been officially released yet. Still it was kind of you to make so many factual errors in your review as they can provide a warning to people that your opinions are unlikely to be helpful in deciding whether or not to purchase the album.

  2. Keeley said:

    Jan 08, 08 at 1:39 am

    Simone only sings on Web of Lies. That clip you posted is of Liselotte, for a start.
    Please do not spam the Ayreon forums with your misinformed dislike of this album, and don’t for one second imply that cliche is detrimental to metal.

  3. phenix69 said:

    Jan 08, 08 at 2:08 am

    lol fag

  4. admin said:

    Jan 08, 08 at 9:33 am

    What a shame your your dumb enough to go to a link about an Ayreon 01011001 review if you don’t want anything spoilt.

  5. Nick W said:

    Jan 08, 08 at 2:26 pm

    Shit album by a shit band, well done 5/5

  6. Wesley said:

    Jan 08, 08 at 3:42 pm

    I’m sorry, I really don’t see the part of the review where you gave the album a fair chance. Or the part where you got your facts straight.
    I see the part where you wish you were maddox though.

  7. admin said:

    Jan 08, 08 at 4:19 pm

    mmm, mighty good call, I did feel a pang of offence when I read that. Although, I don’t wish I was maddox, Having millions of visitors coming to my site with no advertisements. Im a commercial fag, I wanna be swimming in my revenue.

  8. fnool said:

    Jan 08, 08 at 9:34 pm

    massive failure

  9. Richard said:

    Jan 09, 08 at 2:01 pm

    I respected your opinion up to the point where you recommended Scarsick.

  10. admin said:

    Jan 09, 08 at 3:28 pm

    Really? How come you didn’t like Scarsick? The excessive Rage Against The Machine sort of sound/swearing?

  11. Kurt said:

    Jan 19, 08 at 8:46 am

    I’m not too sure, and im too lazy to google it, but was Angra’s singer on the album? Maybe it was gildenlow i heard, but yeah, lazy :)

    its a shithouse album compared to human equation though.

  12. Fazcat said:

    Jan 26, 08 at 12:20 am

    Human Equation owns. haven’t listened to this yet, but after hearing from most people its not as strong i feel no desire really.

  13. Marcel Fennis said:

    Jan 30, 08 at 9:44 am

    What a shame the album disappointed you so much. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. The only down side might be the fact that Arjen starts to repeat himself a little but hey, this just means it’s similar to one of the best albums ever released, The Human Equation, and that can’t that bad.Thumbs up for Arjen!!!

  14. admin said:

    Jan 30, 08 at 11:05 am

    “The only down side might be the fact that Arjen starts to repeat himself a little”
    Yeah one of my main points is that it sounds so similair to THE, but not as original. thanks for the comment

  15. Jonathan Clark said:

    Feb 05, 08 at 7:40 am

    Awesome change-around of lyrics. :D

  16. This Reviewer is Stupid said:

    Feb 06, 08 at 2:23 pm

    I’m sorry that you prefer the voices of males over females. Learn to appreciate a good female voice. For lack of sounding to reasonable, you are a fag, fag.

  17. admin said:

    Feb 06, 08 at 7:00 pm

    I never said I prefer the voices of males over females. I love many female singers, I like the ones on this album too. My point is that they’re overused, sound too similar to THE and become boring quickly.

  18. CamBam said:

    Feb 15, 08 at 10:35 am

    Haha! I’ve not heard this album yet but i did love the human equation. i hope i disagree with you and like the new album. Also i think its hilarious how everyone hates you for voicing your opinion! The website is called albumsthatsuck, were they expecting a good review? Duh!

  19. Pi said:

    Feb 16, 08 at 11:17 am

    I love this album!

  20. Gaz said:

    Mar 04, 08 at 8:00 pm

    You people remind me of the audience on those singing contest reality tv things like the X Factor or Pop Idol or whatever - whenever the judges voice their opinions you immediately boo like they’re gonna a give a shit about what you think.

    Like another commenter said - this is “AlbumsThatSuck.com” - get a grip. These are gonna be BAD reviews.

    I love Aryeon, THE is one of my top 10 albums, but a good band can still release a wank album. See: DT - Systematic Chaos, Morbid Angel - Heretic, Slayer - Christ Illusion…

    Another 3 of my favourite bands aswell :P

    Good review though, made me laugh. What is it with prog bands and the inevitable descent into cliche? Now to listen to the album…

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