Ayreon
Into the Electric Castle

Release Date: 1998 | Tracklist

“Into The Electric Castle”, also known as “Into The Electric Castle – A Space Opera”, is the third studio album of the Ayreon project and was released in 1998. The line up on “Into The Electric Castle” is divided into vocalists and instrumentalists. The vocalist are: Edwin Balogh – The Roman, Sharon Den Adel – The Indian, Jay Van Feggelen – The Barbarian, Fish – The Highlander, Anneke Van Giersbergen – The Egyptian, Arjen Anthony Lucassen – The Hippie, Edward Reekers – The Futureman, Damian Wilson – The Knight, Robert Westerholt and George Oosthoek – The Death and Peter Daltrey – The Voice. The instrumentalists are: Lucassen, Ed Warby, Roland Bakker, Robby Valentine, Erno Olah, Taco Kooistra, Jack Pisters, Rene Merkelbach, Clive Nolan, Ton Scherpenzeel and Thijs Van Leer.


“Into The Electric Castle” is in general considered the Ayreon’s second best working after “The Human Equation”. As most of Lucassen’s fans probably already know, he never intended for this album to be anything other than a masterful working, because he believed that the vitality of his Ayreon project depended upon it. After the previous Ayreon’s album, “Actual Fantasy”, which sold below expectations, Lucassen sought to deliver a top quality recording. If the album had not been a success, Arjen said he would have no longer continued the Ayreon project. With this in mind, he created the concept and music for a progressive science fiction epic and gathered some of the best vocalists around.

Lucassen picked each of his singers so well that the releasing of this story, through lyrics and music, is really stunning. Not only the vocalists are great, but they real become, each with their roles, delivering a performance that is vocally impressive and emotionally involving, something you wouldn’t expect from a relatively cheesy science fiction story.

Being a concept album, as are all Ayreon’s albums, it’s a fairy tale about eight persons from very different eras. It tells a science fiction story with characters influenced by science fiction movies. The eight main characters sing each song, played by a different vocalist, from different times and locations. So, "Into the Electric Castle" follows the lives of eight characters from different epochs in history who meet in a lost dimension. They find themselves in a strange place. They have been brought together by an invisible force and have to enter into an Electric Castle. A mysterious voice guides them through a maze of trails that leads them to the Electric Castle, in which they must find the gates back to their own centuries. Characters die in different songs, building suspense about who will reach the gates in the end of the story.

The music itself is splendid, heavily layered with synthesizer textures to give it a space opera feel. All the songs incorporate a variety of styles, from progressive metal, to 70’s rock, to folk and to synthesizer pop. The songs vary in complexity and heaviness, but they’re all pretty catchy. The music evolves with the mood, adjusting itself to each particular singer and the tone of the lyrics. It almost seems like you don’t need the lyrics, as the music displays more emotion than of the lyrics do. While the entire album needs to be listened to straight through to really get the sense of the story line. However, many of the songs can be listened to individually, and every song is absolutely great. How often do you come across a song where blues guitar is interrupted by acoustic space-rock as in "Amazing Flight", or from the majestic synthesizers that open "The Garden Of Emotions" to the catchy chorus of "The Castle Hall"? So, “Into The Electric Castle” is filled to the brim with great melodies that demonstrate the Arjen’s ability to write great songs in many different styles, including progressive rock, metal, fusion, folk and others. It features some great heavy guitar stuff and beautiful synthesisers solos. Another great thing about the album is the use of real violins, cellos and flutes, as opposed to using synthesizers to produce decent, but nonetheless fake imitations of the real instruments.

Finally, we mustn’t forget the art cover of the album, which is really special. It was made by Jef Bertels. Bertels is a Belgian painter who was actually only known locally after Arjen hired him. Bertels has also painted the cover for “The Dream Sequencer (Universal Migrator Part 1 & 2)”, “The Human Equation”, “01011001” and “The Theory Of Everything”.


Conclusion: “Into The Electric Castle” is a great album that contains many beautiful melodies, driving parts and floating sections. This is truly a fascinating work of music and story. The music is so powerful and melodic that it becomes easy to envision everything that is happening during the story. It’s rather difficult to say enough about how excellent all of the instrumentation and vocals are throughout this album. You wouldn’t expect some filler, it never happens and every track is superb. It’s more diverse than other Ayreon releases and certainly not as heavy as some other titles. Perhaps that’s why “Into The Electric Castle” seems to have a hold on long time fans as the quintessential Ayreon’s album. If you are a progressive rock fan who likes opera rocks, this album was perfectly made for you.


Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)

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4.1 excellent

Rank: #80 for 1998