Ayreon, the music just comes to mind. Ayreon is sort of a band with one member. His name is Arjen Anthony Lucassen. He is heavily into the
progressive rock genre with a very spacy melodic sound to his songs, or journeys. He makes
rock operas which may be 2 hours in length with an assortement of
musicians contributing to the project.
From the Ayreon website:
He breathes new life into the good-old rock opera, has many famous musicians and singers participate in his musical adventures and sells an impressive number of albums without playing one single gig.
Among those musicians you can find names such as Fish, Clive Nolan and many others.
His latest cd to date, Into The Electric Castle is a two cd length space opera which tells the tale of several individuals who are transported into a dimension by an entity known as:
I am as water, as air, like breath itself.
And to quote from CD 1:
You are eight mortal souls of the flesh, chosen from different eras ancient and modern. The trivia of your mortal lives is unimportant - to me... Indeed, some may die...
You have a task: To release yourselves from this Web of Wisdom, this knotted Maze of Delirium, you must enter the nuclear portals of the Electric Castle!
So this is the journey. The music is somewhat similiar to bands like Arena and Shadowland.Heavy melodic progressive rock with lots and lots of themes and melodies compiled into one big mess, with a dash of "pompous" instrumental parts.
I still need a drink.