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Review Summary: Certainly the less known project of the mastermind of Ayreon and probably the weakest of all. However, it still is a great album. Ambeon is a Dutch progressive musical project consisting basically of the multi-instrumentalist and composer Arjen Anthony Lucassen and of the female vocalist Astrid Van Der Veen. However, the project had also the participation of Stephen Van Haestregt, Walter Latupeirissa, John and Pat McManus, Erik Norlander and Lana Lane.
Ambeon is a mysterious and ambient musical project of Lucassen, the Dutch mastermind of the Ayreon project. Originally, Arjen have set out to record an ambient instrumental album based on certain electronic patterns, chords and melodies derived from the recorded tracks of existing Ayreon songs, to test his new studio hardware system. The name Ambeon is a play with two words, “Ambient” and “Ayreon”. Initially, the music didn’t have vocals and was based on some previous Ayreon songs. So, this new Arjen’s project is basically “Ambient /Ayreon” music and can be considered to be progressive metal with some elements of dark ambient music. In the process some new songs evolved and Arjen, thought that figured female vocals on one or two songs would add a more warm human touch to the project.
So, for this new project, Arjen features a very young and very talented female vocalist, Astrid. Lucassen heard a recording of a 14 year young Dutch singer. This was exactly the voice he was looking for Ambeon, and so he asked her to write lyrics and melodies to go over some of these re-constructed ambient tracks, and she sings them. This new arrangement worked out extremely well. So, before he realized, the album had developed from an instrumental album with two vocal songs to a vocal album with two instrumentals. To get as much outside input as Arjen could in order to not make it sound too much like an Ayreon album, he decided to involve some also several musicians who could bring in their own ideas, just like Astrid did. So we have Stephen, who helped Arjen out with the technical issues of his new hard disk recording system, turned out to be a very good and versatile drummer, the experienced Latupeirissa (Snowy White, Steve Lukather, Pat Travers) played some great bass and fretless bass, two guys from the band Celtus, John and Pat McManus, added to the folk atmosphere by playing flute, pipes and fiddle and finally he also had the usual collaboration of Eric Norlander of Rocket Scientists on keyboards and Eric’s wife Lana Lane, on the additional vocals.
“Fate Of A Dreamer” released in 2001 and as I said before, is a progressive metal album with some elements of dark ambient music. All the ten tracks feature samples and arrangements from some Ayreon songs. "Fate Of A Dreamer" still feels so sweet with strong feelings flowing through every song while accentuating the surreal atmosphere. The album's strength is in how Arjen was completely successful in making every song independently interesting, while still retaining a vigorous tie between them, which makes the whole album stream gently like a river in our minds. It’s gentle, fresh of sweetness that starts to flow and contains many of the typical metal elements. Yet, we don't must expect too many heavy riffs, or any distinguishable crushing choruses from “Fate Of A Dreamer”, which is in fact an easy listening album in the genre. Lucassen was trying to give emphasis to the dramatic side of the music. This has been quite well achieved by a good use of instruments and lyrics, such as appropriate keyboard lines contributing to what Astrid is singing about and also some guitar solos. A dominating sense of nostalgia, suspense and indecisiveness begins pouring out from the very first moment of playing this album. These feelings are simply stressed by the use of the beautiful melodies. I even dare to say that the album contains some gothic aspects too, both musically and lyrically.
The album was out of print for years. It was re-released in 2011 with bonus tracks, and an accompanying acoustic CD covering various Ambeon and Ayreon tracks. In 2001, it was asked to Arjen to do an acoustic show with his Ambeon project in Italy, which by some reasons, the gig never took place. To perform that acoustic show, Arjen invited, besides Astrid, two other girls, Ewa Albering on flute and Dewi Kerstens on cello. The four recorded a combination of Ayreon and Ambeon tracks, 16 in total, in his studio. So, those recordings were put on this new bonus CD by Arjen, as a bonus.
Conclusion: Can we love or hate him, it’s clear that Lucassen isn’t a conventional artist. After his success with "Into The Electric Castle" and both "Migrators", Arjen has had another original and risky idea, composing and recording a CD without dozens of collaborators and with an only 14 years old female vocalist. “Fate Of A Dreamer” wasn’t that satisfying for Arjen himself, as once he said in an interview, but at the moment I really believe it's totally underrated. Personally, I liked "Fate Of A Dreamer" from the first time I played it, and my appreciation hasn't diminished with the time. About the second CD, only on the special edition, I really like it a lot. It represents a great complement to the album. Its quality means that it’s well worth seeking out if you didn’t, or even if you did get it the first time around.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
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Album Rating: 3.5
Your comments are very well received, as usual.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Listen to couple of tracks, sounds very good and fresh IMO.
Review great written. Thumbs up
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
It sounds really good, dude.
Thanks for your comment and pos.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
And by the way, Charlie. You're very welcome to Sputnik, man. I hope you like to be with us.
Cheers.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
I need to check this one.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Yeah, do that, man and you are going to see that it deserves and you aren't going to lose your time.
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One of Lucassen's most interesting LPs. Good ol' days when he was still trying relatively new things and there was excitement in his music.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
I find the vocals too popish and not powerful enough, compared to the music that tries to rock the house, and vocals are also bland and fragile. Knowing that the singer is 14 probably affects my judgement, but she tends to get on my nerves. There are scattered great instrumental sequences, but nothing too special. I guess album doesnt have much replay value. I'm not hurry to relisten.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
@altertide0
I'm glad you like it, man. And yes, I think he tried to do something new, starting from the old.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
I think you are little bit unfair with the album Jethro. As you said, this is the voice of a young girl with only 14 years old. For 14 years old, I really think the voice is really very good. By the other hand, this is an album with some ambient music with some metal touches. So, it's natural that you can see on it a kind of a popish feel. And yes Jethro, there are some great instrumental sequences on it. So, I think you must listen it again, when you're ready. I really think the album is much better than you think. As I wrote on my review, even Arjen wasn't totally satisfied with it. However, I don't totally agree but I respect your opinion and thanks for your comment, dude.
Cheers.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Will give this another try. Maybe I went too promptly to respond. I'll try to be as objective as possible.
Also, good review!
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Yeah man, do that. As I can see, I think you always was a very fair "judge". Anyway, we are talking about music and is perfectly normal we have different tastes and feelings about it.
Cheers.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
I'm still not a fan of most of her vocal lines (and her voice is not powerful nor mature enough) and some songs like ''Fate'' and ''Dreamer'' are skippable to me, but instrumentally, I got some enjoyment in parts. I think I'm able to give it a thin 3.5 finally, although it's really near from a 3.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
As I was convinced, I knew you'd find some positives points in this album. However I'm not so critical about the voice of Astrid as you are. Anyway, and as I wrote before, even Arjen wasn't totally satisfied with the final work in the album. Although, and I really don't know if it was because the singing of Astrid. He even praised her performance in the album.
As I presume you don't have the album, and my version is the new special edition with a an excellent booklet inside the art cover of it, I'm going to transcribe a passage of what he has wrote about what is his opinion in relation to Astrid's work on the album.
"I must say, it's truly amazing how Astrid managed to make the Ayreon songs her own, especially the parts sung by male singers. And she sang all these tracks in just one afternoon, often in just one take! She is undoubtedly one of the greatest talents I ever worked with. I still email with Astrid every now and then, and I'm happy to tell you that she is doing really well again, after having been through a difficult period of life. She's now involved in (professional) music anymore; instead she has taken up painting as her creative outlet. And if she's only half as good at painting as she is singing, I'm sure she's doing an amazing job! Good luck and lots of hapiness to you, Astrid, and I'm sure I speak for all of us fans:-)"
So, sometimes the words of the artists himself are better than ours. They know much better the people with whom they work, than we do.
I hope not have been boring and more enlightening about the vocal qualities of a girl with only 14 years old.
Cheers dude and once more, thanks for your support.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
I guess I'm too harsh with Astrid. If I didn't know about her young age, probably I wouldn't have noticed anything wrong. However, I still think some of the melodies could have been better (less popish).
Cheers!
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Ok, man. Thanks a lot.
Cheers.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
I became very interested with this album, because you wrote in your review. I will order the album. Probably the special edition.
Nice review.
Have a pos.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Thanks and do that man. And yes, the special edition is better than the original version and deserves that we give some extra money to get it. Anyway, I think that is the only version that you can get, at moment.
I'm going to tell you my story about my version of the album, if you don't mind and if you have some patience to read this.
I'm a great fan of Arjen and I own a copy practically of the albums of all his projects, especially the studio ones. So, some years ago, during three or four years I tried to get the album from different sources, my usual suppliers, but it wasn't possible. Even in January 2011, when I've been in London, it wasn't possible to do that. I simply have concluded that the album had been put out of print for some time ago. However, to my great surprise, in the end of that same year, my mainly supplier told me that the album was re-released but as a special edition with two CD's. Of course I ordered it immediately. And of course I also became very curious and interested in what would have the second CD. And I assure you, that it's also very good and represents a great complement to the original album.
So, I hope that what I wrote can have some utility to you and that can interest you even more with the album.
Cheers.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Thanks, man. I appreciated what you wrote. I really think that I'm going to try to put my hands on a special edition version of the album. I also admire Arjen, especially his Ayreon project.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
You're welcome dude. I'm very happy that I can help you to do a good chosen. Ambeon is really a very nice album and so, enjoy it soon as you can.
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