Star One – Victims of the Modern Age (2010)

As one of the most anticipated releases of 2010, today we have Star One’s second full-length album “Victims of the Modern Age”. After seven years of waiting, Arjen Lucassen brings us a brilliant Progressive Metal/Rock space journey with “Victims of the Modern Age”.

As you can always expect with any project where Arjen Lucassen is involved, the listener is treated to a wide variety of haunting songs featuring some of the best vocal arrangements and brilliant instrumentation on any album released in 2010. While the similarity to the last few Ayreon albums is very high, Arjen manages to craft songs that  capture the listeners attention and transports them to a different world.

Highly focused on the atmospheric keyboard work, Star One quickly takes off with very powerful songs like “Down the Rabbit Hole” and “Digital Rain”. Paired along with the keyboards, we have very catchy riffing, super tight drumming and brilliant vocal arrangements courtesy of the very impressive list of singers: Sir Russell Allen, Damian Wilson, Floor Jansen and Dan Swanö. Being one of the characteristics of Ayreon, we couldn’t expect anything less from Arjen Lucassen in his projects, since he always seems to fin just the right singer for the exact part.

Most of the music continues in the same vein as “Space Metal”, focusing bombastic atmospheric arrangements and explosive guitar melodies. With Joost van der Broek and Arjen handling the keyboard duties, we get a very spacey atmospheric feeling that can easily equate to watching some good science fiction movies. The guitar work is very well done, very typical of Gary Wehrkamp and Arjen. Rounding up the mix we have Ed Warby, the lone warrior behind the massive drumming on this release.

In terms of good songs, we have to say that pretty much each track has its own charm and work wonders with the atmosphere and the vocal lines. Songs like “Digital Rain” and “Cassandra Complex” are our favorites since they flow majestically, weaving the atmospheric elements with soaring vocals and melodic guitars. Other songs like “It all Ends Here” and “24 Hours” we are treated with emotional rollercoasters, ranging from all-around epicness to more mellow sections, all in the span of one very well constructed song.

While most songs are very original in nature, we still have songs like “Earth that was” that have striking similarities to previous Ayeron songs in terms of the chorus section. As much as we love this release, we have to point out that not all is 100% great and that there are plenty of déjà vu moments when listening through this album. Not saying that this is bad, but still something worth mentioning for the sake of being objective.

In overall, Arjen Lucassen has managed to top himself once more with “Victims of the Modern Age”. This album will be greatly appreciated by all fans of Star One, Ayreon, and most of Arjen Lucassen’s projects in general. We only have to hope that we don’t need to wait another 7 years for the next Star One album.

Release: October 26th, 2010

Country: Netherlands