Arjen Lucassen is officially working on a new Ayreon album, scheduled for release in 2017 via Mascot Label Group. He has now confirmed Nightwish vocalist Floor Jansen for the record.

Lucassen: "Once again she managed to impress me. This was undoubtedly the best recording session I ever did with her."

Jansen: "I will be one of the voices on the amazing upcoming new Ayreon album!!! Yesterday snippets of songs went on Facebook for people to guess who's voice it was they heard. I read some of those guesses, really cool! As a child I wanted to become a biologist :-) I loved (and love) nature and all creatures in it and I understood on a child's level that a biologist works with this. My biggest passion won from this child's dream. But..now it's uniquely combined in the story behind Ayreon's new album (out 2017).

Working with Arjen was again so relaxed and so much fun. Again he pulled the best out of me with his amazing music and ways of recording. Making music with such a musician is a true privilege! Standing in the studio with a growing belly was another new challenge which turned out to be easy! The baby loves music and rocks around as I belt out some notes! "

Vocalists confirmed for the new Ayreon album include:

- James LaBrie (Dream Theater) as The Historian
- Tommy Rogers (Between The Buried And Me) as The Chemist
- Simone Simons (Epica) as The Counselor
- Michael Mills (Toehider) as TH-1
- Floor Jansen (Nightwish) as The Biologist

Photo by Andrea Beckers @ Beckflash Fotografie