Tommy and Avantasia/Ayreon...

[skyflare]

Don't be so critical - I'm so greatful that others are inspired to put out new albums and express themselves in this genre. For $7, The Theory of Everything is a brilliant addition to my prog music collection, and Tommy makes what would have been great even better. I think Arjen has produced a result that is more progressive and more enjoyable to me then The Human Equation and Into The Electric Castle - I haven't heard his other work yet. I love how continuous and perfectly mixed it is. It also demonstrated that Tommy hasn't become too much like Kahn by touring with Kamelot over the last 2 years. I felt like Tommy had to reserve his style to fit into the extremely powerful, less progressive Kamelot. However, Seventh Wonder is clearly different. Tommy becomes much more over the top and expressive as a rule in Seventh Wonder. Some people would call that over-singing - I'd call it being a bad-ass who can sing better then 99% of the population. But great job catering to the style the Kamelot fans grew fond of.

I saw Kamelot in Orlando just recently. Tommy has great stage presence and is very professional, so I'm really excited to see him again with his "true" band at ProgPowerUSA XV (now sold out) next year. It will be interesting to see how he sings Mercy Falls years later.

Tommy's work on Ayreon gets me excited for the new seventh wonder album, because Tommy has one of the only voices in modern prog metal that seems appropriate and still articulate - I don't know what a lot of metal bands are saying because it's just pointless noise really, so I focus on the clean and operatic singers mostly. Circus maximus also has the right tone for aggressive, modern prog and they were even better live at progpower this year. Sure, there is a lot of cool retro stuff with nice singers, but Seventh Wonder is hitting the bullseye with being relevant and original today with a no non-sense melodic aggressive style. So much aggressive music is about noise and anger, but this band is about story and musicianship. Seventh Wonder has production quality that lets you hear everything properly, while enjoying a story and it's really exciting because of the progressive elements and movie-like skits. Rhapsody does that too, and it seems to be extremely important part of why some bands get more praise then others. The added humor, imagery, stories, skits, music videos all add more to the communication to make something memorable. It takes a lot more work to go beyond just playing your instrument and think more about presentation and supplemental material. Even if the lyrics were simple on Ayreon, it is still a technical achievement to bring that much diverse content together in one continuous soundtrack. What is wrong with keeping it simple sometimes? It's like a great summer movie. The tendency to be all clever and weird is probably going to make it sound worse and appeal to fewer people.

Ayreon didn't just release an album, it did a lot of supplemental material and brought together a bunch of creative geniuses. I really enjoy hearing how all that mixes together. Imagine if you could have the favorite people from all your favorite bands come together and jam on top of your ideas. Arjen is pretty fortunate to be able to do that. He also has this rule that he bring new people into the project, so it's actually probably harder to know what you're going to end up with when all the talent is replaced each time. He's a mad genius with recording/mixing I'd say.

 

[BaraHime]

I loved the album. It was so nice to hear Tommy's pretty little angel voice showcased for once.

Both Kamelot and Seventh Wonder grossly under utilize it. He sings too low with Kamelot - even on the songs that would shine with his softer voice. (Why, Tommy? Why? T_T ) And he's so aggressive with most of SW's songs that it's rare to hear it there either, which sucks.

I would have liked to have more Tommy and fewer instrumental gaps, but even so, I'm happy with how it turned out. I think the simplistic lyrics were designed to make it flow like it is a proper play, rather than an outside telling of a story. It's the reason that the lyric "what is real, and fake, Jolee" from Song for Jolee makes me want to smack Tommy upside the head. He is speaking from the character's perspective when he sings that line, and no one who lived in 1888 would have used the word "fake." That breaks the believability of the story. (That's to say nothing of idiotic idea of the name "Jolee" appearing in 1800's England. Modern day Tennessee, perhaps, but not in 1800's England, no fucking way.) For that same reason, had Arjen gone overboard with poetic script writing, it would feel unnatural due to the modern setting. So I think he made the right call by keeping it simple. (Though, I wish he had made the doctor say "we have a problem" rather than "we have got a problem." To me, a doctor would speak properly. Tommy, playing a child here, is forgiven for using "can I" as opposed to the correct "may I" due to his character's immaturity and mental state; It makes sense that he might make an obvious grammatical error. But the doctor... I'm anal about proper grammar, I know, but I feel he should have spoken properly. )