Every song's been sung before. Every note's been played. Every chord has been strummed before. Every melody's been made. Every album's been produced and every music style has been fused.' These are quotes from the song Pink Beatles In A Purple Zeppelin which can be found on Lost In The New Real, the new album of Arjen Anthony Lucassen (see interview). You could also say: every review has been written and every comment about the new Lucassen-album has been made, so why bother writing another one? Well, maybe I can add something to the many reviews or maybe I come up with something original about Lost In The New Real. What are the odds, anyway? So, maybe if you read this you will get déjà vu feelings; I hope that will not be the case... So, this is Arjen's first real solo-album, meaning that it isn't an Ayreon or a Star One-album. What you get is ninety minutes of musical diversity, as this double album features musical styles like pop, industrial, folk, metal, rock and of course prog. Lost In The New Real is also a concept album, dealing with rather interesting topics like religion, music from the good old days, censorship, population control, politics and euthanasia. Arjen was able to enlist the famous Dutch actor Rutger Hauer as the narrator for the album; Hauer wrote his own script. I won't go into the story as it has already been told too often in other reviews. The first CD contains three marvellous and outstanding songs being the title track, the rather dreamy and melodic The New Real and the heavy piece Parental Procreation Permit, having excellent lyrics and melodies. The title track is the most complex song on the album; it's extremely diverse and one of the best songs Arjen has ever written. The second album consists of five new songs and five covers. As you probably know I'm not a fan of covers and that's in fact a euphemism! However, I must admit that I really like Arjen's cover of Pink Floyd's Welcome To The Machine, which is completely different from the original song. I also like Veteran Of The Psychic Wars from one of my favourite metal bands Blue Oyster Cult. Other outstanding songs on the second CD are Our Imperfect Race containing a great guitar solo, The Space Hotel featuring a very catchy chorus, and You Have Entered The Reality Zone which is short, but very sweet. The package is beautifully illustrated by Claudio Bergamin and of course there are some bonus features, as we normally expect from Arjen Lucassen. This time you get a video on CD1 'behind the new real' and on CD2 a video about the artwork. I really love this album and it's doing overtime in my CD-player, so get it while you can! I forgot to mention that Arjen Lucassen performed all the vocal parts and he passed with flying colours! And by the way... the only reason why I didn't give a five-star rating was due to the fact that I feel that When I'm A Hundred Sixty-Four is a bit of a filler... ****+ Martien Koolen (edited by Peter Willemsen) Where to buy? |
