Y  (50:08)
	01	Age Of Shadows						10:47
	02	Comatose						04:26
	03	Liquid Eternity						08:09
	04	Connect The Dots						04:12
	05	Beneath The Waves						08:26
	06	Newborn Race						07:49
	07	Ride The Comet						03:29
	08	Web Of Lies						02:50
Earth  (51:59)
	01	The Fifth Extinction						10:29
	02	Waking Dreams						06:31
	03	The Truth is in Here						05:12
	04	Unnatural Selection						07:15
	05	River of Time						04:24
	06	E=mc^2						05:50
	07	The Sixth Extinction						12:18

InsideOut Music

R E L E A S E D A T E

January 2008

January 23rd: Japan, Thailand, Korea and the rest of Asia
January 25th: Germany, Austria and Switzerland
January 28th: Europe
January 29th: U.S and Canada

Other territories & labels TBA.


I N S T R U M E N T A L I S T S

Arjen Lucassen
Guitar, keyboards, synths, bass guitar, programming

Ed Warby(Gorefest)
Drums

Lori Linstruth
Guitar solo

Michael Romeo
Guitar solo

Derek Sherinian (Planet X)
Keyboard solo

Tomas Bodin (The Flower Kings)
Keyboard solo

Joost van den Broek (After Forever)
Keyboard solo and piano

Jeroen Goossens (Flairck)
Flutes

Ben Mathot (Dis)
Violin

David Faber
Cello


V O C A L I S T S

Forever

Hansi Kursch (Blind Guardian)
Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation)
Tom S. Englund (Evergrey)
Jonas Renkse (Katatonia)
Jorn Lande
Anneke van Giersbergen (Agua de Annique, ex-Gathering)
Steve Lee (Gotthard)
Bob Catley (Magnum)
Floor Jansen (After Forever)
Magali Luyten (Virus IV)

Man

Simone Simons (Epica)
Phideaux Xavier (Phideaux)
Wudstik
Marjan Welman (Elister)
Liselotte Hegt (Dial)
Arjen Lucassen
Ty Tabor (King's X)



I can honestly say that I have never looked forward to an album as much as this. It's Ayreon's 7th album, and the 5th instalment of the story that began with The Final Experiment. Ayreon, a project of Arjen Lucassen, have an unorthodox and experimental musical style. Their albums are Rock Operas incorporating numerous genres, including progressive rock, metal, folk, classical and electronica.

Music and lyrics are, as always, composed by Arjen, who once again has a small singing part. Drums are again provided by Ed Warby. The singers are mainly new, although a few Ayreon veterans have been included in the cast.

I have to admit, after The Human Equation, I was a bit worried about how the next album would measure up. The cast was incredible, not only featuring vocalists from three of my favourite bands (James LaBrie from Dream Theater, Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth,and Devin Townsend) but innumerable others that I have come to love. The music and the story were fantastic as ever, and were even more varied than Ayreon's previous albums. However, it seems that my pessimism was unfounded, once again Arjen has compiled an amazing cast of singers and instrumentalists (with favourites of mine such as Daniel Gildenlow, Hansi Kursch, Jonas Renkse and Tom Englund) and there isn't a sample that I don't love. ~ Review taken from BlueSunCorp

The story:

Through technological advancement, 'Forever', a race of aquatic beings living on Planet Y, has found the secret of longevity. They have advanced to the point that they have become completely dependent on machines and are losing their emotions. A passing comet on a collision course with Planet Earth provides the opportunity to revitalize their race; 'Forever' harness the comet to carry their DNA to a new home on Earth. When the comet and Earth collide, the cataclysmic impact exterminates the dinosaurs (the Fifth Extinction), but from the ashes of destruction, humans arise. At first, the experiment with seeded DNA seems successful: through the humans ‘Forever’ vicariously relive the emotions they experienced before the age of machines. In order to help mankind overcome their physical ailments and mental limitations, 'Forever' speeds up human evolution. But the result is tragic: people develop a similar technological dependency with their emotions waning just like 'Forever' and moral development not keeping pace with their capacity to invent. 'Forever' must find a way to save mankind from its imminent self-destruction... or should they?

This album serves to be the missing pieces from Ayreon's previous albums, describing the civilization that sent messages of man's demise to Aryeon in "The Final Experiment". I must say that I was worried as well that 01011001 would not stack up to The Human Equation. After such a masterpiece it is hard to continue to make such works of art. 01011001 proves to do the job well. Although not quite as great in my mind as the previous album, it certainly stacks up to and surpasses the ones that came before. I rarely feel the need to chip my 2 cents into an album post, but this album deserves it.