#FATES WARNING

[nofatclips]

Scars by Fates Warning

[rockingreads]

Jeff Wagner: Mean Deviation: Four Decades of Progressive Heavy Metal (2010)

With Mean Deviation: Four Decades of Progressive Heavy Metal, my homie Jeff Wagner wrote the definitive treatise on the genre for all of those who like to use their brains, as well as their brawn ...

Having been dismissed by haughty, short-sighted critics as music for morons when Black Sabbath first walked the Earth (*), heavy metal has always been the Rodney Dangerfield of music genres: fighting against "No respect!" from day one.

But this perception surely contributed to the rise of increasingly cerebral metal bands over the ensuing decades: starting modestly via nerdy '70s precursors like King Crimson and Rush, before exploding through '80s champions like Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, Celtic Frost, and even the essential if almost unlistenable Watchtower. (**)

The genre's floodgates truly opened in the '90s and beyond, as progressive tendencies infiltrated every other metallic sub-genre (thrash, death metal, black metal, metalcore, etc.) through the efforts of groups like Death, Dream Theater, Voivod, Coroner, Atheist, Arcturus, Cynic, Sigh, Therion, Opeth, and so many more.

Jeff clarifies all this with the diligence and intellect demanded by the art form, but none of the torture often associated with it; turning this most challenging fusion of music and lyrics into an accessible, entertaining, and obviously adventurous history.

* Once those early Sabs LPs attained belated cult status, many of these same critics would spend the rest of their careers awkwardly recanting or justifying this position vs. their glorification of similarly savage acts like The Stooges and the MC5

** Jeff cites a perfect description for this dichotomy, not uncommon among the most daring but also reckless prog-metal explorers: "[Watchtower's music] is brilliant, completely fucking amazing … and I never want to hear it again!"

Featured Records:

Watchtower: Energetic Disassembly (1986)

Fates Warning: Awaken the Guardian (1986)

Queensrÿche: The Warning (1984)

Voivod: Angel Rat (1991)

Dream Theater: Awake (1994)

Buy from: Amazon

[metalcultbrigade]

Fates Warning - "Awaken the Guardian" 10/11/1986

[mezmer]

[musicmags]

[rhythmmistress]

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

[mywifeleftme]

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

[sunseekerdeluxe]

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

[ha-bakbuk]

“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...

[nofatclips]

(Mostly the audience singing) We Only Say Goodbye by Fates Warning, live in Athens, Greece, 1999

[allaboutherock2011]

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE SHARE VIDEO FOR NEW SINGLE "I BELIEVE"

Three-time Grammy-nominated hard rock heavyweights and platinum-selling band Killswitch Engage — Jesse Leach, vocals; Adam Dutkiewicz, guitar; Joel Stroetzel, guitar; Mike D’Antonio, bass; and Justin Foley, drums — are gearing up for the release of their new album This Consequence out February 21 via Metal Blade. Pre-order it here. Today, they have shared the video for the new single “I…

[metalcultbrigade]

Fates Warning - No Exit 23/03/1988

[mezmer]

[sugoiney-weaver]

Watching Metal Mayhem on MTV classic. So far I've seen Fates Warning, Dream Theater, Steve Vai (in David Lee Roth's Yankee Rose), Helloween, Opeth

What a fantastic evening