Ayreon

Elected is the first EP by progressive metal project Ayreon, owned by Dutch musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen. It features the guest performance of German singer Tobias Sammet, from Avantasia and Edguy. The EP contains an Alice Cooper cover, an acoustic guitar and voice version of "E=MC²" and the track "Ride the Comet", both from the album 01011001. There is also a piano version of The Human Equation's "Day Six: Childhood". Some reviewers and also the CD-Text information on the CD itself call the EP The Universal Ayreonaut. The album entered at #69 at the France Singles Top 100 and stayed in that position for three weeks.

With a career spanning more than three decades, composer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Lucassen has firmly established himself worldwide as driving force in progressive rock. While best known for his rock opera project Ayreon, the multi-talented Dutchman also regularly embarks on musical side projects such as Ambeon, Guilt Machine and Star One. Arjen’s side projects all explore different aspects of his musical personality, with each new release being a creative reaction to the style of its predecessor. Star One is no exception.
The first Star One album, Space Metal (2002) was Arjen’s reaction to his previous project, the relatively soft Ambeon. After releasing the first few Ayreon albums, Arjen had noticed that many others were following in his footsteps and releasing their own rock operas…

We at Musicalypse have known and loved Anneke van Giersbergen for many years and many projects, from The Gentle Storm and Ayreon, back to The Gathering, and onward to pretty much anything she’s ever done with Devin Townsend. However, the one thing that’s never quite clicked has been her solo music, at least for me personally; so when the band VUUR was announced, anticipation ensued! Not only was the legendary vocalist going to be heading back into heavy waters with her music, but she had some of Ayreon’s absolutely fantastic musicians with her, including the incredible Ed Warby on drums, Jord Otto and Ferry Duijsens on guitars, and Johan van Stratum on bass. Do any of those names sound familiar? They might, if you’ve been following any of Arjen Lucassen/Ayreon‘s work in the past few years.

With a career spanning more than three decades, composer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Lucassen has firmly established himself worldwide as driving force in progressive rock. While best known for his rock opera project Ayreon, the multi-talented Dutchman also regularly embarks on musical side projects such as Ambeon, Guilt Machine and Star One. These projects all explore different aspects of Lucassen's musical personality. Lucassen strives to keep a consistent cast of vocalists for Star One rather than mixing it up with the ever-changing vocal line-up that characterizes Ayreon. For "Victims of the Modern Age" he reunited the stellar cast of lead vocalists from the first album, “Space Metal” (2002): Russell Allen (Symphony X), Damian Wilson (Headspace, Threshold), Floor Jansen (ReVamp, ex-After Forever), and Dan Swanö (Nightingale, Second Sky, ex-Edge Of Sanity)…

Ambeon is a Dutch progressive act, a project consisting mainly of multi-instrumentalist composer Arjen Anthony Lucassen (Ayreon, Star One, Guilt Machine) and Astrid van der Veen, very talented young female vocalist. The act's first and only album to date, "Fate of a Dreamer", was recorded in 2001, when van der Veen was just 14 years old. Ambeon's atmospheric sound draws from a wide variety of influences, including Celtic, gothic and progressive music. The songs on "Fate of a Dreamer" are mostly composed of different remixed pieces of songs from Ayreon albums, whereas the lyrics are original, written by van der Veen.
This expanded edition is a 2-CD digipack with an 20-page booklet. CD 1 contains all of the tracks from the original release, plus three additional tracks that were exclusively found on the "Cold Metal" single…

Robby Valentine is a Dutch singer and multi-instrumentalist who started his professional career in the eighties, and is the frontman of his band Valentine. After his professional start as the keyboard player in Dutch symphonic rock band Line, he soon moved on to form the melodic hard rock band 1st Avenue in 1987, together with vocalist Peter Struyk (ex-Vandenberg). This band released two albums when Robby had already left. In 1989 he joined Dutch ‘happy metal’ band Zinatra, which enjoyed great popularity in predominantly Asia and South America, as well as The Netherlands. This band toured independently, and opened up for David Lee Roth and Steve Vai. In 1990, Valentine signed a solo deal and started working on his first album…