Live version (April 1998) of A Pleasant Shade of Gray - Part V from the Expanded edition of A Pleasant Shade of Gray

New Tumblr Aesthetic Idea Thingy

Progressive Metal Album Covers. They’re weird, often liminal, but so cool looking.

Fates Warning - No Exit 23/03/1988

Time to pump some iron and listen to the music that I love!!!!

Tunesday 43

Also heard this week:

Alice in Chains - Black Gives Way to Blue Tori Amos - Under the Pink Angel Dust - Marching for Revenge Armored Saint - Delirious Nomad Armored Saint - Saints Will Conquer Blind Guardian - Beyond the Red Mirror Blood Incantation - Starspawn Borknagar - Winter Thrice David Bowie - Blackstar Candlemass - Death Thy Lover Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus Chiaroscuro - Brilliant Pools of Darkness Cobra Spell - 666 Contrarian - Sage of Shekhinah Crimson Glory - Crimson Glory Cruciamentum - Obsidian Refractions Dare - Sacred Ground Deftones - Gore Dokken - Back for the Attack Dokken - Return to the East Live (2016) Dream Theater - LNF: When Dream and Day Unite Demos Dwelling Below - Dwelling Below Dying Fetus - Make Them Beg for Death Dying Wish - Symptoms of Survival Eclipse - Armageddonize Editors - In Dream FM - Indiscreet Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters Giraffe Tongue Orchestra - Broken Lines Insomnium - Winter's Gate Jethro Tull - Aqualung Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance Kayo Dot - Plastic House on Base of Sky Mannequin Pussy - Romantic Mastodon - Remission Mullmuzzler - Keep It to Yourself Nails - You Will Never Be One of Us Nine Inch Nails - Not the Actual Events Omnium Gatherum - Grey Heavens Operation: Mindcrime - Resurrection Phantom Winter - Her Cold Materials Poets of the Fall - Clearview Queensrÿche - Condition Hüman Ra - Duality Sodomisery - Mazzaroth Sumerlands - Sumerlands Ian Fletcher Thornley - Secrets Tremonti - Cauterize Virgin Steele - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part Two Weald and Woe - For the Good of the Realm White Lung - Paradise Chelsea Wolfe - Pain Is Beauty Year of the Cobra - ...In the Shadows Below

44: Fates Warning // Perfect Symmetry

Perfect Symmetry Fates Warning 1989, Metal Blade (Bandcamp)

As a teenager I almost certainly would’ve called prog metal or thrash my favourite genre of music, and I spent a lot of time listening to icily produced chops demonstrations in the vein of Fates Warning’s Perfect Symmetry (though, even as a head, I never cared much for this record in particular). I’ll pause here to play a game of Remember Some Guys.

Remember Some Guys (Prog Metal Edition)

Remember Watchtower?

Remember Anacrusis?

Remember Mekong Delta?

Remember Crimson Glory?

Remember Flotsam & Jetsam?

Remember Thought Industry?

I remember those guys! Anyway, Fates Warning at one time were considered one of the “Big Three” of ‘80s/‘90s prog metal, alongside Queensrÿche and Dream Theater, but the years have rendered them much more of a cult act (see: FW’s 26,000 Spotify listeners versus over a million each for DT and the ‘Ryche). I can think of a couple of reasons for this. Their early albums sound like straight up and down ‘80s traditional metal, if a group of guys had broken all its limbs with a set of golf clubs. The songs have huge, starry-eyed choruses, flashy solos, and some timeless riffs, but they jerk around at odd angles, thwarting the simple headbanger who just wants to gallop. As they moved through the ‘80s and ‘90s they reinvented themselves multiple times as first ur-technical Guitar Center porn (see: Perfect Symmetry), then mellow Queensrÿche-adjacent crossover hopefuls, and finally into a darker-hued sound influenced by latter-day King Crimson, Tool, and Peter Gabriel. A lot of their back catalogue is actually pretty good, but this restlessness (and leader Jim Matheos’ increasing taste for grey moods and flat melodies) soon saw them fall behind their peers in sales and influence.

Back to Perfect Symmetry. As you’ve probably gathered, I think this album sucks. Even when they were singing about giants and sorceresses, ‘80s Fates Warning never met a simple pleasure they weren’t compelled to complicate with bonkers time signature and tempo shifts. Sometimes those bait and switches and hairpin turns could be thrilling, as on the thrash-influenced numbers on No Exit, their previous album. Here though, you can practically see the band screwing up their faces (and their songs) into expressions of intense, tortured profundity. Everything fun about the band goes out the window in favour of plodding tempos, groaning pseudo-philosophy (sample: “Men of grandeur / blinding, numbing / with winsome wiles in specious styles”), and pointlessly busy playing that sounds like they arranged it using a circuit diagram. This also was not a good look for vocalist Ray Alder, who often gambles with the key when he shouldn’t.

I picked this album out of a dollar bin a few years ago out of old loyalty to the band and, given that it now fetches a decent little sum, I’m sure I’ll part with it eventually. But I’ll close with some words of praise for a band I’ve enjoyed a lot over the years: after Perfect Symmetry, Fates got this particular bug out of their system, and they never really returned to this style. Matheos in particular had a cool renaissance in the 2000s, and I’m very fond of his collaborations with Chroma Key’s Kevin Moore as OSI and his initial reunion with original Fates vocalist John Arch in 2003. Eh, in a 40-year career, they won’t all be winners right?

44/365

Fates Warning 1985 Spectre Within

released 15.10.1985

“The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.”

- Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Such a masterpiece, and perfectly performed! I am almost in tears at the sheer beauty of this...

nowplaying The Sorceress by Fates Warning out of Awaken the Guardian Live

It just arrived and I'm loving it 🥺💜

This Day in Metal 🤘

𝐌𝐚𝐫 𝟐𝟑𝐫𝐝 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟖 #𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐛𝐮𝐦 “𝐍𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐢𝐭” #𝐈𝐧𝐀𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 #𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 #𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐎𝐟𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 #𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥

𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰...

𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐥𝐛𝐮𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐯𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐑𝐚𝐲 𝐀𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫, 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧.

ATES WARNING's RAY ALDER And JIM MATHEOS Launch New Project NORTH SEA ECHOES, Release First Song

Two members of the pioneering progressive metal act FATES WARNING, Ray Alder and Jim Matheos continue to brave new waters with NORTH SEA ECHOES. Today, the duo is proud to announce the release of their debut album, Really Good Terrible Things, due out February 23, 2024 via Metal Blade. The band is pleased to share the first taste of the upcoming record with their new single, “Open Book”, which…

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Tunesday 41

Also heard this week:

Acid Throne - Kingdom's Death Aiwass - The Falling Anaal Nathrakh - The Whole of the Law Anathema - The Crestfallen EP Angra - Aurora Consurgens The Anchoress - Confessions of a Romance Novelist The Anchoress - Confessions of a Romance Novelist: The Kitchen Sessions The Answer Lies in the Black Void - Thou Shalt Anti-Depressive Delivery - Feel. Melt. Release. Escape. Autarkh - Emergent Baroness - Purple Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus Crimson Glory - Crimson Glory Deftones - Gore Dokken - Back for the Attack Dredg - Orph Editors - In Dream Failure - The Heart Is a Monster Florence + the Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful Peter Gabriel - "Live and Let Live (Bright-Side Mix)" Peter Gabriel - "Live and Let Live (Dark-Side Mix)" Left Cross - Upon Desecrated Altars The Lord & Marthe - The Eye of Destiny Yngwie Malmsteen - Fire & Ice Morne - Engraved with Pain Nails - You Will Never Be One of Us Nine Inch Nails - Not the Actual Events Opeth - Sorceress Poets of the Fall - Clearview Porcupine Tree - Stupid Dream Queensrÿche - Condition Hüman Rush - Moving Pictures Thronehammer - Kingslayer Voivod - Post Society Wormhole - Almost Human The Wounded Kings - Visions in Bone XTC - 3D EP Y Kant Tori Read - Y Kant Tori Read Year of the Cobra - ...in the Shadows Below