(((O))) Review: Arjen Anthony Lucassen – Songs No One Will Hear

It’s been thirteen years since Arjen Anthony Lucassen had unleashed a solo album since his third studio album Lost in the New Real. Arjen himself has been a very, very busy man when it comes to storytelling adventures, conceptual albums, Ayreon, and of course projects such as The Gentle Storm, Star One, and Supersonic Revolution. There’s not a single stop sign for him. He’s gets down to business when it comes to arranging and composing.

Now, in 2025, Lucassen has returned back to the solo world once again on the InsideOut label, this time tackling the themes about the end of the world with humanity on the brink of collapse for a nuclear war that’s about to happen. Chaos, humour, and raw emotion, its all there in this guitar-driven, prog-rock, and in your face attitude that’ll make you buckle your seat belts and prepare for the end to occur.

With fellow maestros such as Joost van den Broek, the Jansen sisters (Irene and Floor), Stream of Passion’s Marcela Bovio, Patty Gurdy on Hurdy Gurdy, Plan Nine’s Robert Soeterboek, and Kaleidoscope / Fairfield Parlour’s Peter Daltrey to name a few, this is an out of this world album Lucassen has unleashed for 2025 so far. There are two different versions of the album; one is the narration done by Mike Mills which details the situation that’s about to occur with sound effects and chaos, and one without the narration.

Alan Moore once said that “Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the doors on all those dreadful things that happened. Forever”. That’s what Songs No One Will Hear details, that whatever is happening, madness is the only solution to be free from all of the danger that’s occurring. Close it up and witness it in all of its glory.

The brutal honesty behind the opening track of ‘The Clock Ticks Down’ sets up the preparation with a washcloth of synthesisers, heavy riffs, clock-ticking hi-hat’s, acoustic guitars, Floor’s emotional boundary by duetting with Lucassen, and the rising tidal wave hitting your body like a giant battering ram, unexpectedly. ‘Goddamn Conspiracy’ sees Goossens laying down the heavy flute orientations as he follows Lucassen’s multi-instrumental parts between guitars and bass.

You can hear aspects on the first part on The Theory of Everything which was unexpected for Arjen to revisit the story he had done from his Ayreon project, singing in the styles of Michael Mills and Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia. Not bad for Arjen to revisit the Theory-era on this bad boy while Westerveld’s cello and mournful keyboard section whether its Broek or Lucassen, the Dr. Strangelove approach behind ‘The Universe Has Other Plans’ becomes an emotional roller-coaster as panic spreads worldwide.

Meanwhile, the fun gets even dark and humoristic behind the vaudeville approach with an Italian Prog orientation that speaks of Premiata Forneria Marconi’s ‘Celebration’ and bits of Queen thrown into the mix behind the ‘Shaggathon’ that’s about to begin. I can imagine Arjen was listening to Alice Cooper’s Welcome to my Nightmare for inspiration on what he was doing during that time when begin as a solo artist, unleashing this maddening conceptual story fifty years ago.

But its ‘Dr. Slumber’s Blue Bus’ that hits hard. Arjen sings “Are you ready for the big one? / It’s alright to lose control / Come with us, and join the final ride / sit back, it’s time to hit the road”. No matter what happens, once the big one hits, it’ll be a spectacle. With its medieval textures and mixing a ‘90s-like approach of Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears-era thrown into the kitchen table, the fanfare is going to be exquisite once the clock reaches at 12:00am.

But it’s the calm after the first six tracks as Arjen gets out his acoustic guitar to send the last pages in his diary for ‘Just Not Today’ knowing while the end is nigh, giving out the final hurrah and knowing that fallout shelters will never work and the emptiness will feel as if we’re in a ghost town, ready to occur before the big bang hits on the 14-minute epic finale ‘Our Final Song’.

It starts out with a nod to The Beatles’ ‘Drive My Car’ riff from the Rubber Soul album which speaks volume in this loop that Arjen puts down in the introduction. The ‘80s-like synths rise from the graves as Lucassen tackles his Peter Hammill vibration in the soaring skies as pandemonium starts to go bat-shit crazy.

A galloping turned insane asylum, with a bonkers-like gift Lucassen has unleashed, Songs No One Will Hear is the album that’ll make you want to go back and revisit again and again, repeatedly to see what pieces of the puzzle the master himself has left behind.