#98 - Ayreon

Ayreon seems like a band name, but it's actually just one dude with a huge host of guest musicians.  The dude is Arjen Anthony Lucassen, a Dutch composer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who writes, records most of the instrumentals for and produces Ayreon's rock-opera-like albums.

Ayreon's music is mostly progressive metal, usually with multiple contrasting vocalists singing different roles.  The list of vocalists who have recorded with Arjen is long and a veritable who's who of progressive metal and rock singers, including Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, Devin Townsend, James LaBrie of Dream Theater and Ty Tabor of Kings X to name a few.

I'm sort of cheating, because the below is actually from another Lucassen project called Star One, but the formula is the same as on other Ayreon albums so you'll get the point.  And I really like the singers on this one.  Enjoy!