Fates Warning is an American progressive metal much like it’s biggest colleague Queensryche. The have been around since the mid 80s and also have an almost clear influence on a certain heavy metal band I like(Iron Maiden) and you can definitely hear it in their sound. Their vocalist, for this album at least, even sounds alot like Geoff Tate from, well, Queensryche.
Parallels is likely the album that many Fates Warning fans know them for and/or are introduced to from the band. A little fun fact here, when having thank you’s for this album, they spelled Dream Theater’s name with the old English spelling Theatre. Then for Dream Theater’s Images and Words they did the same thing with Fates Warning and instead spell it Fatez Warning just to get back at the joke. As for the album its self, it surly does follow alot of 80s and early 90s progressive and heavy metal traits.
They seem to have alot radio-like tracks, alot of more “floaty” instrumentation and they often have tracks no longer than 7 or 8 minutes. Fates Warning managed all of that in one album. Tracks like Leave The Past Behind and Point of View are more representative of their heavy metal side that many people came to know them by and also seem more radio friendly. On the contrary, tracks like The Eleventh Hour represent the softer, ballady side of their music which was also very present highly in the 80s and 90s with bands like Metallica, Judas Priest and Pantera continuing this trend very heavily. The music is great to listen and somehow doesn’t sound like Empire by Queensryche released a year prior. I find alot of it to be kind of mainstay for heavy metal, but it is this formula that make these bands enjoyable to me. I may find the music to be kind of cheesy at least in the more cliched fashion, but that is no reason to not like something. Not at all. Yeah, I could deal with a tad bit more originality, frankly that’s my only gripe, however I decided to settle with what I got, and what I got was something of the ages.
I give this album an 8/10. I am the Grim Reaper, signing off.
