STEVE VAI to guest on new STAR ONE album
13-10-2021
Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) is back with a new Star One album titled Revel In Time. The new album comes more than 10 years since the previous release and is due out on February 18, 2022 on InsideOutMusic. Today, succeeding a now infamous guessing game, Arjen Lucassen reveals that A-list guitarist Steve Vai joins his project for a guest solo. He will apprear on a 3 minute solo for the song ‘Lost Children of the Universe’.
Says Steve Vai:
“Arjen sent me this intoxicatingly delicious track and I felt I needed to impregnate it. I’m very happy with what it birthed“.
Says Arjen Lucassen:
“This is a big thing for me… my hero Steve Vai plays an amazing 3-minute solo on my new Star One album! Please check out this link to see Steve’s heartwarming quote and my reaction. Enjoy 
“.
The album will be available for pre-order on December 17 and it will come as Ltd. 2CD Digipak, Ltd. Deluxe 3CD+Blu-Ray Artbook (incl. a poster of the cover artwork), and as 180g Gatefold 2LP (incl. the album on CD & an LP-Booklet). CD 2 features alternate versions of the same songs as CD 1, but with different vocalists. Also available will be a 5.1 mix, a high-res audio version, and an exclusive, hour-long Behind the Scenes video, on the Blu-ray included in the Artbook.
For this Star One release, Arjen has decided to use a different singer for each song, and those singers as well as the instrumentalists are slowly being revealed on Arjen Lucassen’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/
Arjen explains the decision to return with a new Star One album:
“Ayreon is like the mothership for all my music. It contains all the different musical styles that I like to listen to and that I love to create. But I’m always looking for challenges and trying to create something new and original as well. Working within a set of constraints forces you to do that, so sometimes I like to limit myself and focus on just one style. For example, with Star One I focus on the metal-side of Ayreon. That means you won’t hear the exuberantly liberal use of acoustic instruments that are so often featured on Ayreon albums, like violin, woodwinds, cello, horns, dulcimer, mandolin, etc.”
The artwork was designed by Ayreon artist Jef Bertels, Arjen explains:
“As always, Jef’s painting is wondrously labyrinthine; I can sit in front of it for hours and discover new details all the time. Now you might be thinking “Hey, isn’t Jef Bertels the designated artist for Ayreon, but not for Star One?” Of course I thought about that myself. But when I realized how much I liked this album I felt that it deserved a painting of its own and a special place alongside Jef’s other front-cover masterpieces. And anyway, I’ve been breaking rules ever since the very beginning of Ayreon. So… there you have it!”
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