Main menu
Fretplay home Submit tabs

Fates Warning
Fates Warning tabs Fates Warning discography

Channels
Guitar channel Bass channel Guitar videos Reviews

Message Forum
Guitar forum Bass forum Bands and artists Promote your band Recent discussions All categories

Fretplay.com

Fates Warning guitar tabs

CD reviews

Still Life

Fates Warning - Still Life Audio CD

A fair review of the Fates Warning "Still Life" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Fates Warning reviews here, or go back to the Fates Warning tabs.

Band: Fates Warning
Title: Still Life
Rating:

Release Date: 1998-10-06
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 1 2: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 2 3: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 3 4: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 4 5: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 5 6: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 6 7: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 7 8: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 8 9: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 9 10: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 10 11: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 11 12: Pleasant Shade of Gray: Pt. 12 13: Ivory Gate of Dreams 14: Eleventh Hour 15: Point of View 16: Monument 17: At Fate's Hands 18: Prelude to Rain 19: We Only Say Goodbye

Where's Fates Warning's management? :-(
Yes, I am a huge fan of Fates Warning (FW), but I do have several serious complains about this album. "Still Life", although well-produced, well-engineered and well-played in general, is a total failure from a marketing's point of view. I would like to ask the following questions to the band's management:

1- Why repeating the entire "A Pleasant Shade of Gray" album in CD1? Is this supposed to be somehow interesting? To whom? I understand that it demonstrates what the band can do live but? is it marketable -- even for fans? IMHO, that's aiming to the wrong target once more -- if you can say that there's "a target".

2- Why so many cries from the crowd on the record? To fake a popularity they don't actually have? It's ridiculous!

3- Why did you include precisely *that* "Monument" track in which Ray Alder sang so badly in CD2? How come the producers let that version of the song (so poorly sung) go into the final release? I saw Ray Alder singing "Monument" in Montreal millions times better than in "Still Life". I could see that he can do it so, it had to exist a better live version for the album. What happened, guys?

4- Why a so colorless cover? Why is it so lacking of attractiveness? Does management has anything against FW? Who approved that cover? I own all FW albums in spite of their (in general) boring covers, but. . . is someone expecting that people will be hooked by their ugly covers, if they don't know them?

I see FW so poorly managed and marketed that I can feel no less than rage and pain. FW, being a brilliant progressive metal band (one of the best, one of the roots, indeed!), is reduced to nothing: always pale, in a second plane, low-profile-alike, opaque, almost underground in spite of their greatness. . . I understand that their music is not for everybody, but someone have to make them more visible to their potential consumers (for example, to the same crowd that consumes Queensryche and Dream Theater, which finally are far more successful bands than FW -- and don't tell me that their 2003 tour with those two monsters made Fates Warning justice! I would just call to that "palliative therapy"!).

In few words, "Still Life" is just worth for fans (so, for us maybe it'd be four or five stars, but for the rest of the world, just two -- sorry). Sincerely, I think that FW missed this time a good opportunity to come with the best pieces of their entire career in a live album. IMHO, just another pitfall from their faulty management, that's sadly always missing good opportunities for FW. You, guys in FW, you rock! You, FW's managers, you stink!.

Very impressive - but too much crowd in the mix.
I think it demonstrates the band's technical skill to pull this off and the material comes off well. Unlike some of the other reviews, I really enjoy hearing "A Pleasant Shade of Gray" preformed in its entirety on Disk 1.

My biggest single complaint with this release is how the producer mixed in crowd noise. I guess he didn't want us to "forget" it's a live album because the crowd noise is way to prevelant. During the soft intro of APSOG a handful of fans continue to whistle and holler for almost two full minutes. Rather than adding excitement, it just becomes grating because these few fans whistling is almost louder than the music.

Other than this issue, this is a great live release with excellent performances and production. You can hear each instrument (including the bass!) very clearly. I definitely recommend picking it up.

4 and 1/2 Stars-Good Live Album That Could've Been Great
And although this piece is played well, it ends up not being as good as the studio album. Disc 1 of this double-disc live set is devoted to a live representation of Fates Warning's magnum opus, A Pleasant Shade of Gray. It's missing some things that the album had: the build-up at the first, the alarm clock at the end, etc. , and the playing is inferior to the record in the more chops-heavy sections. Also, it is played straight-up as the album plays, with no improvisitation, and is actually shorter (!) than the album. A fine piece of work, no doubt, but if I wanna hear APSOG I'll just pop in the studio version.

Disc 2, on the other hand, is a must for any Fates Warning fan. Stunning versions of The Ivory Gate of Dreams (the whole thing), Monument, At Fates Hands, and Prelude To Ruin among other Fates favorites are abound on this disc. The band is in good form, especially Ray, and there are a few good improv sections with Jim, Mark, and Joey Vera really tearing it up. Bernie Versailles does a good job on second guitar as well. Any Fates fan will love this disc.

In hindsight, this is a good live album that could've been great. It would've been better to have had just a handful of tracks from APSOG represented (especially since there is already a live APSOG video), and there could've been more songs tacked on to disc 2. I would've liked to have had versions of Nothing Left To Say, Part of the Machine, or stuff from any of the earlier albums. Still, this album is worth looking into if you are a FW fan.

1 star for cd 1, 5 stars for cd 2

Unfortunately, cd 1 features all of the material from a Pleasant shade of grey, which in my opinion (see my review of this cd) is the worst cd ever done by Fates, and the lethargy is not improved by the engergy in playing live. Cd 2 contains material before their last studio cd "a pleasent shade of grey" and is done fabulously, even sometimes better that the studio recordings.

Where is Disc 1
I ordered this CD before Christmas. Just a minor problem. I wanted APSOG and this seemed like a no brainer - a double live disc for the price of one. Turns out my CD had two discs 2 but no disc 1. I liked the second disc but can't rate the first. I'm wondering if anyone else had the same problem.

You can see a complete list of all Fates Warning discography, or go back to the Fates Warning tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.