Who is this Ambeon you talk of? Why does their music sound so hauntingly familiar?
Well, if you’ve been following the Music Project for sometime now, you might be familiar with Dutch metal head, Arjen Lucassen, aka Ayreon. He is the musical equivalent of a polymath in that he is accomplished in numerous instruments (like Mike Oldfield), genres and styles (mostly prog). Lucassen, as you might know, is involved in many musical collaborations and projects and Ambeon, is one such project.
Ambeon serves as a prototype of Stream of Passion, in that it was fronted by a female lead singer, (then 14 year old) Astrid van der Veen. Sadly this is the only album by the project, van der Veen citing musical, personal and other difficulties preventing her continued work with the project.
Fate of a Dreamer is an interesting album in that it features a great deal of reworked and evolving themes present in other Ayreon and Stream of Passion albums which any fan of Ayreon will definitely detect. My favourite track from the album is the song Cold Metal. A sorrowful tune about a girl lying on the railway tracks waiting to be run over by a train. Of course, I didn’t know this to begin with as my old music system wasn’t a great one which often made it difficult to hear what people were singing. I used to think she sang “Cold Cold Badgers”.
Stegzy's Music Project 
Into Temptation: The Best of Gothic Rock — Various Artists [#637]
by stegzyWhen the much talked about Great Internet MP3 Download Free-for-All of the mid to late noughties hit, I was trying to develop my musical tastes in the dark elven forests of gothdom. As long-term readers may remember, one of the many tactics I use to discover music is to download compilations to figure out which bands I like the sound of.
One of the first compilations I downloaded was called Into Temptation. It had some really good songs on it from bands like Nightwish, Within Temptation and Ayreon. Sadly, I lost the first version due to file and disk corruption and, despite repeated attempts, was unable to locate the version I had. But with acts like Nightwish, Within Temptation, Ayreon, Sirenia, The Gathering, Lacuna Coil AND Tristania….it will do.
Complete tracklisting for this compilation:
1 –Within Temptation – Ice Queen
2 – After Forever – My Pledge Of Allegiance #1 (The Sealed Fate
3 –Nightwish – Ever Dream
4 – The Gathering – In Motion #1
5 – Tristania – Wormwood
6 – Ayreon – My House On Mars
7 –Within Temptation – Our Farewell
8 – Ambeon – Cold Metal
9 –Lacuna Coil – Senzafine
10 –After Forever – Emphasis
11–Trail Of Tears – Driven Through The Ruins
12 – Sirenia – Meridian
13 – Beseech – Between The Lines
14 – Therion – O Fortuna
And if that list doesn’t get you running for the Kleenex you’re obviously listening to the wrong genre.
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After Forever Ambeon Ayreon best of compilations Gathering (The) gothic Lacuna Coil metal Progressive Metal Sirenia Symphonic Rock Therion Trail of Tears Tristania within temptation