(Review from streamofpassion.com, progarchives.com)

Stream of Passion is another one of Arjen Lucassen’s side projects and features musicians from many different countries. The music is build around Mexican female vocalist Marcela Bovio’s beautiful voice. Arjen discovered her and she guested on Ayreon’s “Human Equation” album from 2004.

To form the band, Lucassen used the Internet to tap into the numerous talents that reside all across the globe. A year ago, Dutch drummer Davy Mickers downloaded a special track from Lucassen’s website to enter a musicians contest, and used it to showcase his incredible drumming skills. And just recently Lucassen discovered Lori Linstruth, an amazingly skilled American female guitarist residing in Sweden, among the members of the online Ayreon Yahoo group. Completing the band are Mexican pianist Alejandro Millan and Dutch bass player Johan van Stratum from the Rock Academy in Tilburg.

The band’s creative juices are flowing to and from between computers stationed in all corners of the world – recording, writing and matching up musical ideas to form songs. The end result is as diverse and driven as each individual band member.

Blending mysterious gothic vocals, metal guitars and atmospheric trip-hop, with haunting pianos and live celli- and violin quartets; the band’s “Embrace the Storm” album was released in 2005.

The songs on the album have chugging heavy metal riffs and lots of melodic elements both in the guitar playing and the omnipresent piano motifs but it’s Marcela Bovio’s melodic melody lines and emotional vocal performance that everything evolves around. The music is not as symphonic as the usual projects from Arjen, but there’s still an unmistakable flavour to many of the songs.

Line-up:
- Arjen Lucassen / guitars, music
- Marcela Bovio / vocals, lyrics, violin
- Johan van Stratum / bass guitar
- Davy Mickers / drums
- Lori Linstruth / lead guitars
- Alejandro Millan / piano

Track List:
01. Spellbound – 3:34
02. Passion – 5:20
03. Deceiver – 5:09
04. I’ll Keep On Dreaming – 3:45
05. Haunted – 4:31
06. Wherever You Are – 5:08
07. Open Your Eyes – 5:14
08. Embrace The Storm – 4:12
09. Breathing Again – 3:38
10. Out In The Real World – 4:32
11. Nostalgia – 3:08
12. Calliopeia – 5:39

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