Review: Arjen Anthony Lucassen – Songs No One Will Hear

InsideOut Music (September 12^th 2025)

Reviewer – David Brighouse

Dutch songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Lucassen is no stranger to a concept album with his main creative project Ayreon, but this is a solo album, his first since 2012’s ‘Lost In The New Real’ and it gave him the chance to do whatever he wanted with the album which deals with the premise that the world will end in five months’ time when a giant Asteroid will collide with Earth.

For anyone not familiar with his work this is primarily guitar led prog rock, and although a solo album he is assisted by many musicians he has worked with before such as Irene Jansen and Floor Jansen (Nightwish) on Vocals, Koen Herfst (Vandenberg) on Drums and Joost Van Den Broek on Keyboards.

The album comes in two different versions, one with narration provided by Australian singer Michael Mills (Toehider) and one without.

This review is of the narrated version which starts with ‘End Of The World Show‘, where broadcaster Mike Mills sets the scene and hopes his listeners ‘stick around’ so they ‘can ride this whole thing out together until the very end’.

‘The Clock Ticks Down‘ starts slowly as standard prog fare and deals with the immediate reaction to the news, before the synthesizers and heavy guitars kick in, as people don’t go to work, society starts to break down and despair takes over, with the mournful harmonizing of Lucassen and Irene Jansen set amongst Lucassen’s guitar soloing.

As with any crisis of this enormity there will always be the denialists, so ‘Goddamn Conspiracy‘ rushes in sounding very Jethro Tull with Jeroen Goossens on Flute, throwing in references to Elvis, 5G, JFK and UFO’s as it gallops along with soaring organ and violin (Ben Mathot), great fun.

Kicking off with more violin, reminiscent of Kansas, ‘The Universe Has Other Plans‘ highlights the inevitability of what is going to happen irrespective of who you are, the song rising and falling propelled by first violin and then guitar solos.

‘Shaggathon‘ is a self-explanatory title, depicting the more hedonistic approach taken by some, using a light hearted vaudeville style in a 3-minute romp.

In total contrast ‘We’ll Never Know‘ is the emotional story of an expectant couple whose child will never be born, a ballad with an 80’s feel, beautifully sung by Lucassen and Floor Jansen.

‘Dr Slumber’s Blue Bus‘ (the Blue Bus a reference taken from ‘The End’ by The Doors) sees the party crowd heading to the impact site on Sanctuary Island for one big final blow-out, amidst swirling guitar and repeated chorus.

‘Just Not Today‘ is all acoustic guitar and strings as Lucassen reminds us to enjoy the relationships we have now.

And finally, the 14-minute ‘Our Final Song‘, which split into 8 sections, pulls elements from what has gone before into a wonderfully epic ending covering the final hours before the impact – ‘’This is the end, the end of humanity‘’…or is it?

Lucassen has crafted a classic concept album and although not a totally original idea, it is an album of great breadth skilfully blending humour and emotion to tell its story, the real message of which is ‘seize the day’ as you never know what is round the corner, and what better way to do that than to give this album a listen.

Track Listing (Narrated Version):

1. End of the World Show
2. The Clock Ticks Down
3. Goddamn Conspiracy
4. The Universe Has Other Plans
5. Shaggathon
6. We’ll Never Know
7. Dr Slumber’s Blue Bus
8. Just Not Today
9. Our Final Song

Web Links:

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