''The Human Equation'' is the sixth album from the

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

project

Ayreon Ayreon is a musical project by Dutch songwriter, singer, musician and record producer Arjen Anthony Lucassen. Ayreon's music is described as progressive rock, progressive metal and power metal sometimes combined with genres such as folk, electro ...

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

musician

Arjen Anthony Lucassen Arjen Anthony Lucassen (born 3 April 1960) is a Dutch singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer best known for his long-running progressive metal/rock opera project Ayreon. Lucassen started his career in 1980 as the ...

, released on 25 May 2004 via

Inside Out Music Inside Out Music is a German independent record label originally based in Kleve, North Rhine-Westphalia, and dedicated to the publication of progressive rock, progressive metal and related styles. In 2009, it formed a partnership with Century Med ...

. As with other Ayreon albums, it features guest appearances from several musicians previously unrelated to the project, including

James LaBrie Kevin James LaBrie (born May 5, 1963) is a Canadian singer, best known as the lead singer of American progressive metal band Dream Theater, which he has been fronting since 1991. Early life Kevin James LaBrie was born in Penetanguishene, Ontar ...

Dream Theater Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of the ...

Mikael Åkerfeldt Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt (; born 17 April 1974)Mikael Åkerfeldt
, Op ...

Opeth Opeth is a Swedish progressive metal/rock band from Stockholm, formed in 1990 by lead vocalist David Isberg. The group has been through several personnel changes, including the replacement of every original member; notably Isberg in 1992. Mikael ...

Eric Clayton Eric Clayton (born December 1, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and producer, best known for his work in the influential gothic symphonic metal group Saviour Machine which he formed with his brother Jeff Clayton in 1989. Er ...

Saviour Machine Saviour Machine is an American Christian gothic metal band that formed in 1989. They have released five studio albums and two live albums on Frontline and subsequently on MCM Music, distributed through Massacre Records. Saviour Machine's music ...

, and

Devin Townsend Devin Garrett Townsend (born May 5, 1972) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He founded extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad and was its primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist from 1994 to 2007. He has also ...

, performing music arranged and written by Lucassen. As with nearly every Ayreon album, it is a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

with each character being portrayed by one singer. However unlike previous albums, ''The Human Equation'' is not a

sci-fi Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universe ...

story but takes place almost entirely in the mind of a character called Me (played by LaBrie) who is in a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

after a car crash, with each song consisting of one day spent in coma. While his Wife (

Marcela Bovio Marcela Alejandra Bovio García (born October 17, 1979) is a Mexican singer and violinist who is currently a member of the Dutch symphonic death metal band MaYaN. In 1995, she joined Hydra, a Mexican metal band, singing and playing violin. In ...

) and Best Friend (Lucassen) are at his side in the real world, Me, trapped in his own mind, encounters representations of his own feelings and recalls his life from his childhood to his crash. The album was released in three different editions: a regular edition with two CDs, a Special Edition with two CDs and a DVD, and a Limited Deluxe Edition with two CDs, a DVD and a 36-page booklet. The album peaked at #7 at

Dutch Albums Chart The Dutch Album Top 100 or Album Top 100 is a weekly hit list of music albums, compiled by Dutch Charts. List shows the 100 best-selling music albums of the moment in the Netherlands. The list has passed through various name changes and has expande ...

and at #50 at Germany Albums Top 50. The album was also released on

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl m ...

in December 2012. ''The Human Equation'' is one of the few Ayreon albums in which Lucassen did not write all the lyrics (the others are ''

Into the Electric Castle ''Into the Electric Castle – A Space Opera'' is the third album of the progressive metal project Ayreon by Dutch songwriter, producer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen. Released in 1998, it was the band's first double a ...

'' and '' The Theory of Everything''): Townsend wrote all lyrics for his character Rage, while Heather Findlay of

Mostly Autumn Mostly Autumn are an English rock band. The group formed in 1995 and have built their reputation through constant touring, never signing to a major label. They produce music heavily influenced by 1970s progressive rock. According to the BBC, M ...

and Devon Graves of

Deadsoul Tribe Deadsoul Tribe were an Austrian progressive metal band founded by Devon Graves (known as 'Buddy Lackey') from Psychotic Waltz. Biography Deadsoul Tribe was formed by Devon Graves in 2000. Graves was originally the vocalist for another progressi ...

also wrote some of the lyrics for their characters, Love and Agony. The albums marks the first collaboration between Lucassen and Bovio, selected by Lucassen via an internet female singing contest to play Wife. The following year, Bovio and Lucassen created together progressive/

symphonic metal Symphonic metal is a cross-generic style designation for the symphonic subsets of heavy metal music subgenres. It is used to denote any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements. The style features the heavy drums and guitar ...

band

Stream of Passion Stream of Passion is a Dutch progressive metal band with symphonic and gothic influences founded by guitarist and composer Arjen Anthony Lucassen and Mexican singer, violinist, and lyricist Marcela Bovio. They have released four studio albums. In ...

Concept and storyline

The album explores the idea of psychological rebirth, and follows the story of a man who, after falling into a

following a car crash, is confronted with his past, his

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...

s, and his current situation as he lays trapped inside his own mind. The circumstances surrounding the crash are mysterious, as the man ("Me", portrayed by

) ploughed into a tree on a deserted road in broad daylight. Following this, he slips into a twenty-day coma, with each day represented by a single song. Each song follows a slightly different format, though there are major common themes, such as the presence of Me's manifest emotions in his

dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...

world including

Fear Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...

(

Mikael Åkerfeldt Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt (; born 17 April 1974)Mikael Åkerfeldt
, Op ...

Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...

(

), and Pride (Magnus Ekwall); the presence of Me's Wife (

) Best Friend (

) at his bedside; and the past events that Me is forced to reflect on. The plot builds from Me’s early broken state to his eventual rebirth as a new and better man. His own dark past, in which he suffered beneath an abusive Father ( Mike Baker), was driven to become merciless by school

bullies A bully is someone responsible for bullying, using aggression to intimidate or dominate others. Bully may also refer to: Animals * American Bully, a breed of dog * Bull Terrier or bully, a breed of dog * '' Gobiomorphus'' or bully, an Australia ...

, and eventually betrayed his closest friend for his own benefit; is intertwined with the plot surrounding Wife and Best Friend, eventually revealing the cause of the crash: Me had witnessed the two sharing an intimate moment, and had swerved his car into a tree in his despair. The three eventually come clean and forgive each other, leading Me to conquer his negative emotions and escape his nightmarish prison. The story terminates with a

twist in contrast to the

psychodrama Psychodrama is an action method, often used as a psychotherapy, in which clients use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno and ...

of the album, but reminiscent of earlier Ayreon releases. The final song cuts suddenly to silence as it crescendoes to a climax, and a computerised voice announces the shut-down of the Dream Sequencer. The voice of Forever of the Stars then speaks the final words of the album ("Emotions...I remember..."), tying its events into the overall Ayreon plot that began with ''

The Final Experiment ''The Final Experiment'' (originally ''Ayreon: The Final Experiment'') is the debut studio album by the Dutch progressive metal project Ayreon, released in 1995. Originally with no artist noted, at the suggestion of the record label the subject wa ...

''.

The Theater Equation

Track listing

''Disc 2 has ten four-second and one nine-second hidden tracks which introduce "Day Twelve: Trauma".''

Personnel

; Vocalists *

(

) as Me *

Mikael Åkerfeldt Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt (; born 17 April 1974)Mikael Åkerfeldt
, Op ...

(

Bloodbath Bloodbath is a Swedish death metal supergroup from Stockholm, formed in 1998. The band has released six full-length albums, two EPs and two DVDs depicting their performances at Wacken Open Air (in 2005) and Bloodstock Open Air (in 2010). The gro ...

) as Fear *

(

) as Reason *Heather Findlay (ex-

) as Love *

Irene Jansen Irene Jansen is a Dutch singer. She sang on the Ayreon album ''The Human Equation'', portraying the character Passion. She was also the live backing vocalist of Star One during their tour in 2003, and played the character Morgana in two Gary Hug ...

as Passion *Magnus Ekwall ( The Quill) as Pride *Devon Graves (

Psychotic Waltz Psychotic Waltz is a progressive metal band formed in El Cajon, California in 1988. Biography The first incarnation of the band was under the name Aslan, after a character in the novel '' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' by C. S. Lewis. W ...

) as Agony *

as Best Friend *

(

Elfonía Elfonía was an experimental rock band with elements of progressive and ambient music. It was founded by Alejandro Millán and Marcela Bovio in 2001 following the leaving of their previous band, Hydra. The band's line-up was extended in 2003 fo ...

) as Wife * Mike Baker (

Shadow Gallery :''The Shadow Gallery is also the name of the home of the protagonist in the graphic novel V for Vendetta.'' Shadow Gallery is an American progressive metal band formed in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania during the early 1980s. It was originally ...

) as Father *

(

Strapping Young Lad Strapping Young Lad was a Canadian extreme metal band formed by Devin Townsend in Vancouver in 1994. The band started as a one-man studio project; Townsend played most of the instruments on the 1995 debut album, ''Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing' ...

) as Rage *

Peter Daltrey Peter James Daltrey (born 25 March 1946 in Bow, East London, England) is an English musician. He has been the lead singer and chief songwriter for the bands Kaleidoscope and Fairfield Parlour. He is also a solo artist. Biography After the d ...

(ex-

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a regular symmetrical pattern when v ...

) as Voice (uncredited cameo) ; Production *Arjen Anthony Lucassen -

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, mixing,

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

; Musicians *Arjen Anthony Lucassen – all electric and acoustic

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

lap steel guitar The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

s, Hammond *

Ed Warby Edward R. Warby (born 7 March 1968) is a Dutch musician, best known as the drummer for death metal band Gorefest and progressive rock/metal project Ayreon. He also appeared in the band Agressor in 1982 and joined the Eindhoven-based metal band ...

(

Gorefest Gorefest was a Dutch death metal band from Goes in Zeeland. It was founded in 1989 by Jan-Chris de Koeijer, Frank Harthoorn, Alex van Schaik and Marc Hoogendoorn. History Within two months of existence Gorefest recorded their first demo. A ...

Hail of Bullets Hail of Bullets was a Dutch old school death metal supergroup from Rotterdam. The band's lyrical content deals with the Second World War, and is based upon the research of vocalist Martin van Drunen, who has been described as the band's "reside ...

) – all

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

*Robert Baba – all

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

s *Marieke van den Broek – all

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

s *John McManus (Celtus, Mama's Boys) – low

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

on Days 13, 16 and 18 and

whistle A whistle is an instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a larg ...

on Day 18 *Jeroen Goossens –

on Days 3, 5, 9, 14 and 18,

alto flute The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, the second-highest member below the standard C flute after the uncommon flûte d'amour. It is the third most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the ...

on Day 2,

bass flute The bass flute is a member of the flute family. It is in the key of C, pitched one octave below the concert flute. Despite its name, its playing range makes it the tenor member of the flute family. Because of the length of its tube (approximate ...

on Days 5 and 14,

panpipes A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

on Day 6,

descant A descant, discant, or is any of several different things in music, depending on the period in question; etymologically, the word means a voice (''cantus'') above or removed from others. The Harvard Dictionary of Music states: A descant is a ...

and treble

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

s on Day 13,

didgeridoo The didgeridoo (; also spelt didjeridu, among other variants) is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgeridoo was developed by ...

on Day 16,

bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...

on Day 18 *Joost van den Broek (

After Forever After Forever was a Dutch symphonic metal band with strong progressive metal influences. The band relied on the use of both soprano vocals and death growls. In February 2009, it was announced that After Forever had disbanded. Singer Floor Jans ...

) – synthesizer solo on Day 2,

spinet A spinet is a smaller type of harpsichord or other keyboard instrument, such as a piano or organ. Harpsichords When the term ''spinet'' is used to designate a harpsichord, typically what is meant is the ''bentside spinet'', described in this ...

on Day 13 *

Martin Orford Martin Orford (born 10 June 1959, Bitterne, Southampton) is an English keyboard player best known as the founder of progressive rock bands IQ and Jadis. He also worked with former King Crimson, U.K. and Asia bassist John Wetton, and has released t ...

( IQ, Jadis) – synthesizer solo on Day 15 *

Ken Hensley Kenneth William David Hensley (24 August 1945 – 4 November 2020) was an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, best known for his work with Uriah Heep during the 1970s. He wrote or co-wrote the majority of Uriah ...

( Uriah Heep) – Hammond solo on Day 16 *

Oliver Wakeman Oliver Wakeman (born 26 February 1972) is an English musician, rock keyboardist and composer, best known as a member of Yes (band), Yes from 2008 to 2011, having filled the role of keyboardist previously held by his father, Rick Wakeman. Biograp ...

– synthesizer solo on Day 17

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Human Equation, The 2004 albums Ayreon albums Concept albums Inside Out Music albums Rock operas