Visiting old friends - Fates Warning and the FWX album
For some reason many people who love modern day prog metal acts of various styles barely seem to notice these guys, and it's a shame because they are attributed to be part of the pioneering branch of prog metal music. Whenever I find myself trying to discover new progressive metal acts, there is always one band I come back to. The band has a plethora of albums to their credit that span the past 22+ years, but one that I've really enjoyed of late is "FWX". This album has all the elements I look for in this genre of music, from strong songwriting to varying tempos and themes, haunting backdrops of rhythm that paint a variety of moods as well as some great riffs to help pump up the volume. Whether you like Dragonforce or Symphony X, Queensryche or Dream Theater, somewhere in the middle of them all is still Fates Warning.
FWX starts out with a slower but still powerful tune in "Left Here" before launching into an epic track called "Simple Human". Great backing vocals that keep things simple and guitar pieces that don't get carried away trying to play 10,000 notes a minute give me time to soak in the messages that come across in the poetic lyrics. The song "River Wide Ocean deep" has an eclectic guitar solo at the beginning with an almost oriental sounding opening before a female vocalist sings a sorrowful like chant in the background. Mystical is the word I'm looking for here, and its just one of many words that describes this song. The song "Heal Me" is much more of a mainstream rocker in many parts, and goes to show how diverse this band can be when spinning out a variety of varying sounds and structures within their music.
If you like a progressive style of music and perhaps are looking for something that is a break from the norm, look no further than Fates Warning and the album "FWX". The music is intelligent and complex, but at the same time they keep it simple enough so as not to drown a listener in boredom by repetition.
Eddie Lancekick
July 2007
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Great Prog-Metal CD!!!
In fact I liked it so much I got some more and that answered my own question!!!
Upon hearing a couple of the older albums I realized I HAD heard them before, way back in the mid-late '80s (had to of been one of the 1st 2 albums). A friend turned me on to this and I LOVE IT!!!! Makes me wonder why I haven't already been listening to them, I know I 1st heard of them YEARS ago. . . and I WASN'T impressed. So, apparently, I never tried them again!!!
Well. . . . . I'm here to tell you. . . . . MAN have they matured, progressed and evolved!!! I'm ready to rank this CD up there under the best and in particular like "Another Perfect Day", "Crawl", "Stranger with a Familar Face" and "Simple Human".
I think the singer is MUCH better than the original one and. . . for the record. . . I still don't like the 80's releases very much!!.
Fates Warning - Another Solid Effort
The principle members all have excellent side project like OSI (Jim Matheos) and Redemption (Ray Alder) that take up part of their time, thus the four year gap between the last two Fates albums. It seems like it is getting longer and longer between Fates Warning albums. But. . . . . . maybe this is a good thing as the quality of the band's last three albums is as good as anything they have ever done. It is interesting to read other people's reviews of this disc. They seem to either really love it or really dislike it. In fact Fates fans seem to be somewhat split between fans of their early more straight ahead metal approach and fans of their later day progressive metal output. I put myself firmly in the latter camp, and consider "X" another strong album from a band that continues to put out quality stuff to it's limited, yet loyal fanbase. All the familiar Fates trademarks are here. Jim Matheos' s elegantly melodic guitar, Mark Zonder's powerful drumming, Joey Vera's thunderous bass, and Ray Alder's towering vocals. The one element that separates this album from the last few is that there is no keyboard player credited here. The keys that are on the album are played by Matheo's lending the disc an overall heavier feel than that the last few. The lyrics are all strong and relevant and are about evenly split between Alder and Matheos. Overall "X" is another solid album from these veterans and would be a nice add to any collection. Let's hope it is not another 4 years before the band's next release.
Near-Flawless Mature Prog Rock
This album is polished, intelligent, and mature. I should start by pointing out that I have been a huge fan of Fate's since the days of "Awaken The Guardian" and "No Exit", but I think that after many years of both pushing themselves creatively and searching for their sound while struggling uphill in a music business that never appreciated their style of music Fate's Warning have elevated their craft to near perfection.
Jim Matheos and Ray Alder both have never really been appreciated as much as they deserve. Jim Matheo's inimitable and refined progressive guitar style has been very influential to many guitarists over the years, Alder's voice has always been amazing, and is better than ever on this disc, yet most people don't know who Fate's Warning is. If this album doesn't do it, nothing will. A near-flawless production, wonderfully well-written modern prog-rock/metal songs which are diverse and intelligent, and great performances from all band members, with a refined, art-rock sensibility similiar to Porcupine Tree or Riverside, which is the perfect direction for this band. A great album that both casual music fans and hardcore prog fans would also enjoy. . . . excellent and criminally underrated band at their pinnacle. A near-perfect 21st century progressive masterpiece.
Pretentious crap
What happened to this band? Admittedly, it's been awhile since I listened to my older Fates Warning but it didn't sound like this. This is one of the worst metal CDs I've ever heard. These songs go nowhere. The singer caterwauls every line like he has a kidney stone and the music meanders around, soft to loud then back to soft, back to loud blah blah blah. There's no structure to the songs, no imaginative riff or chorus to grab hold of. The whole CD just kind of ran togther, 50 or so minutes of the same bland melody and unoriginal guitar work. Quite a disappointment.
You can see a complete list of all Fates Warning discography, or go back to the Fates Warning tabs
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