Ayreon

The Theory of Everything (InsideOut Music)
release date: 10/29/2013
by Mike Delano

If you’re a new band nowadays, unless you’re steadfastly determined to stick to one type of music, chances are your music is a whole melting pot of genres. I mean, pick any top ten hit and it’s probably not just country or R&B or hip hop or dance, but a mix of two or more of those. Ayreon is essentially a one-man band from the Netherlands, and their Wiki describes their sound as “rock opera, prog metal, prog rock, space rock, symphonic metal, folk metal, and power metal.” Uh, is that it? When you have to list so many genres in a description because this one time, during this one song, he hit a note a certain way, then it’s really time we found some new terminology. None of this rant, of course, is the fault of Ayreon, who simply make the kind of epic, melting pot music they wanna make. And it sounds great on “The Theory of Everything” which, as the aforementioned genre laundry list might have you believe, is stuffed with everything from Dream Theater to Korpiklaani to Within Temptation. Stuffed in a good way.
(www.insideoutmusic.com)