My most waited album of the year by far!

I hope there's a version without the narrator. It's helpful on the first listen but then it gets distracting

No thanks, Ayreon has become commercialised, sounds like the echoes of previous material, couldn't stand the song with Simone, sounds all like Get Smart, it's all a mashed up fruit salad, never liked the emotional squealing from Tommy's singing either. The Theory of Everything was their last good album IMO.

The whole 'bluntly stating the plot and characters' emotions with no kind of attempt to give it a prosaic feel whilst singing it in an intensely passionate manner' thing always feels so awkward for me; Iced Earth have always done it quite a lot, and it always grated me when listening to them as well. Projects like The Dear Hunter and Avantasia do these long epic concept stories but their lyrics actually feel like lyrics, rather than just dialogue that's being sung

The music has its share of good parts, but more that's pretty forgettable

Again?

I wonder what changed so drastically for their ratings to plummet like this. I've never listened to Ayreon but they have a handful of 8.5+ albums with hundreds of votes, and then this is trending towards the lower end of 7 at the time of writing this comment. Evidently they fucked up something... or everything.

After the first listen through, almost nothing stands out or is memorable.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 25.09.2020 at 18:16

I wonder what changed so drastically for their ratings to plummet like this. I've never listened to Ayreon but they have a handful of 8.5+ albums with hundreds of votes, and then this is trending towards the lower end of 7 at the time of writing this comment. Evidently they fucked up something... or everything.

Simple - albums like The Human Equation and 011101 contained the following:
- Various musical styles
- Extremely memorable melodies
- Guest musicians that made sense (as opposed to simply trying to name drop as much as possible)
- Stories with characters and plots that actually interested you
- Actual songs

Their last few albums (with exception of the last one, which was okay) have none of the above. Too much dialogue and too many meandering, aimless songs that have no real structure or climax.

This is not clicking with me, at all. Maybe it will change after some more listens, but so far can't really say this is a good Ayreon release. Even the previous album, which was not Arjen's best work to date, I felt enjoyment and above all a true sense of escapism, with a story I like, and singers trying to really portray the characters. Can't say any of the same for Transitus.

I just won't rate any lower than 7 because 1) the comic illustrating the story is a great idea and adds value to the release and 2) even the "worst" Arjen is guarantee of decent music.

Oh no I'm a bit worried now, I didn't like the previous one a lot. But reading the comments, this one seems to be even weaker.

Still going to give it a listen one of these days though.

Written by tominator on 25.09.2020 at 21:03

Oh no I'm a bit worried now, I didn't like the previous one a lot. But reading the comments, this one seems to be even weaker.

Still going to give it a listen one of these days though.

The Source was inconsistent, but had a handful of killer tracks. This one, sadly, offers not even one standout tune.

Written by SoUnDs LiKe PoP on 26.09.2020 at 02:49

The Source was inconsistent, but had a handful of killer tracks. This one, sadly, offers not even one standout tune.

I liked 3 tracks on The Source which were: The Day That The World Breaks Down, Aquatic Race and Everybody Dies. But the rest was unfortunately a slog to get through for me.

This is my last time with Ayreon. I can forgive entertaining kitsch. But it's boring kitsch.

The weakest Ayreon album ever, to me...!!!
Because his works were always magnificent and almost perfect, this one still is almost very good, although I call it his weakest!!!

I think it was affected by Covid-19 someway...

7.7/10

I loved The Source, but I'm sad to agree that this is probably the weakest album so far. The narration is far too much and there are no songs that particularly stick out. I'll give it a good few listens more and hope it grows on me, but it wasn't a good first impression.

I'm so glad to see that it's not just me. I wasn't having a particularly good day when I first listened to it, so I thought that might've affected my opinion a bit. But I have to agree with pretty much all of you. This is definitely the Ayreon album I've enjoyed the least. IIRC it's shorter than a lot of his other albums, but it was still a real slog to get through, and the story didn't interest me at all.

Also, this made me dislike Karevik more than I already do. His singing sounds so forced, and he seems to want to show off more than actually try to put any emotion into it.

Unlistenable to me, why does everything need to be long, 2CD concept albums? Hasn't he done this to death already? And the narration, OMG, famous actor or not, so annoying.

This is DT Astonishing bad, if not worse. I'm done with this band/project...

Pretty good after track 4, truthfully.

On first listen I was stoked but not amazed, story does feel a bit quick/underwhelming. After additional listens im liking it more and more. Mainly due to the new singers and drummer. I feel like with the narration and it being about a realm/place, this would have fit better as a Solo album coming after "Lost in the New Real". Arjen did mention this originally wasn't supposed to be Ayreon, so I wonder if the record label pushed him to do this under the Ayreon guise to sell more copies? Maybe to goal was to play it live after the last few years of theater shows? Im a fan of longer songs, but this album actually threw me off how many short/quick songs there are, I agree with another commenter that overall it reminds me of DT's astonishing a bit but with a dark ending haha! I love the guitar solos on this album but feel like we're missing a ton of ripping synths/organs! Albeit a couple songs do have synth melodies, it doesn't feel quite as synthy as other Ayreon albums. I think this'll be a grower for me. Worth a couple listens for sure, still trips me out we have several sub 2min songs on an Ayreon album.

So far my favorite tracks are:
Condemned Without a Trial (Heavy/Synthy song!)
Lavinia's Confession/Inferno (These should have been 1 songs IMO, but I like both)
Talk of the Town (folky)
Message from Beyond (Feels very universal migrator pt1)

Ayreon have outdone themselves again... This album is even worse than The Source. Maybe I wouldn't hate it so much if it wasn't for the incredibly annoying narration. Someone needs to tell Mr Lucassen what a bad idea it was.
But even without the narration it's still pretty bad. A gazillion singers can't even come up with a single memorable melody, and if they do, it's a ripoff of older albums. I can't really comment on guitar riffs and solos, because I can't remember a single one after 3 listens. I do remember the keyboards though - because they sound exactly like they do on all Ayreon's albums.
Why do I even bother with a band I diss so much? They did release two albums that I value a lot: Universal Migrator and 01011001. Every time they release a new album, I give it a chance hoping that this time it's at least partially as good as these 2. To no avail. Perhaps I shouldn't bother anymore.

Now this one was disappointing. Musically speaking, is average at best... maybe the weakest Ayreon record ever. I like 4 or 5 tracks that are really good and enjoyable and the exceptional vocal work that was created by the duo Tommy Karevik and Cammie Gilbert. But overall, it´s an average record... way too much.

I'm sure Arjan Lucassen spend a lot of time on this album as he's always done, recruiting all the guest musicians etc.
But he totally wasted his time on this album..
What a collection of utterly boring songs.

I'm glad I just downloaded it and didn't waste money on pre-ordering it.

I have to say the album has grown on me some. I still don't think it is up with most of the other Ayreon albums, but it isn't as bad as my first impressions suggested. There are some nice tracks, but there are no standalone defined songs as there were on the other 2CD concept albums. The narration is a bit much after you've heard it all before, but at least it is Tom Baker!

The cast was very promising but the album ended up being very disappointing. The story is shallow and keeps almost no ties with the Ayreonverse, the melodies sound all way too equalized, the narration is far too annoying and Cammie's determination couldn't save her own performance because of all other bad points about this work, mixing included.

I wish we'd get a Star One album instead.

Written by Aries Rising on 30.09.2020 at 05:12

I wish we'd get a Star One album instead.

Instead you get a one star album

Written by Troy Killjoy on 30.09.2020 at 07:02

Written by Aries Rising on 30.09.2020 at 05:12

I wish we'd get a Star One album instead.

Instead you get a one star album

I giggled at this
thank you

Written by Troy Killjoy on 30.09.2020 at 07:02

Written by Aries Rising on 30.09.2020 at 05:12

I wish we'd get a Star One album instead.

Instead you get a one star album

That made my morning, thanks haha.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 30.09.2020 at 07:02

Written by Aries Rising on 30.09.2020 at 05:12

I wish we'd get a Star One album instead.

Instead you get a one star album

Beautiful, just beautiful.

This sounds less like the normal 70s prog inspired Ayreon and more like Diet-Andrew Lloyd Weber. The feeling I get when I listen to this is that something is off, can't really put it into words yet, need to listen to it some more I guess but it's one of the worst Lucassen albums I've ever heard.