"Sail Away to Avalon". One year later, Lucassen decided to continue the project started with The Final Experiment, using Ayreon as the project's official name, and released a second album titled Actual Fantasy. The album later became the exception in Ayreon's discography, as the only Ayreon release that does not feature a single overarching story concept. The single "The Stranger from Within" from this album was also released. It was a relative commercial failure. Lucassen decided to make one more album, and to stop Ayreon if this one did not become a commercial success. The same year, Lucassen, tired after the complexity of Ayreon, decided to do "something really simple, like punky or heavy versions of 1960s songs" and released Strange Hobby, a cover album without artist name or any personnel credited at the idea of the record company to make people curious about the record. According to Lucassen, "it didn't work because people knew how it was and they weren't so interested, so it was another flop. But I think it's good. Maybe the songs are too much alike, too short and after 10 songs you think, 'Oh, that's it?!' But I do like that album and I'm not ashamed that I did it.'" In 1998 the commercially successful and critically acclaimed Ayreon album Into the Electric Castle was released. It is still currently considered one of the best albums in Lucassen's career. The good reception to the album made Lucassen decide to continue the project Ayreon. The next two Ayreon albums, Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer and Universal Migrator Part 2: Flight of the Migrator, considered as two parts of the same story, were released simultaneously on 20 June 2000. The two sold well and were received positively, despite Part 1 being considered superior to Part 2 by most critics. "Temple of the Cat" from Part 1 was released as a single the same-year, and again the following year in an acoustic version. First side projects; Ambeon and Star One (2000–2003) In 2000 Lucassen created Ambeon, his first side-project since the creation of Ayreon, to explore a softer style of his music. The band consisted of him as composer and principal instrumentalist and then 14-year-old Astrid van der Veen as singer and lyricist. They released their only album Fate of a Dreamer in 2001, along with the single "Cold Metal". The album had a limited success.