I won't get into the history of the band too much, there is Wikipedia or other metal sites about it. This album is from 1997 and I got my hand on it around that time on a tape (yeah, I own lots of tapes still, and actually started to buy CDs only years later). Actually until last year, I had it only on that tape and in digital form. But as soon as I found it on the shelves on a foreign store, I had to buy it.
This album gave a lot to me. It is hard to describe, but I listened to it many times in a dark room with the headphones on. This was while I was at the university. Fast forward almost 20 years and I still do the same: listen on headphones and enjoying its beauty. It has somewhat a sad feeling, but still beautiful. It has lot of atmosphere.
The band is cataloged as progressive rock or metal, depending which album you look at. Sometimes they sound like Pink Floyd, other times as Dream Theater or Rush, but this is just to give you some starting points. This is music that can be enjoyed by anyone with open ears. They have their own sound, no doubt.
The drums are really cool, all I can say to the style of the drummer (Mark Zonder) is that it is gentle and elegant, and still complex. The other important part is the keyboards, who add a lot to the atmosphere. Sometimes as a piano, sometimes with synthesized sounds, effects or just plain organ-style background. What is interesting is that keyboards were not even played by an official member of the band, but by a guest musician: Kevin Moore, ex-Dream Theater. And his style no doubt links the two bands and Kevin Moore's other projects, that are not even metal, but more like atmospheric (ambient?) music. The heavier parts of the album are the closest to the other progressive metal band, but also those are the parts that are somewhat a link to the earliest releases, especially to some tracks on the Perfect Symmetry album.
Fates Warning would be no Fates Warning for me without their singer, Ray Alder. I have to admit that their first releases, which are also complex, more heavier and with a different singer, did not touch me like their "newer" ones. I occasionally listen to them, but for me Fates Warning is with Ray. Clear singing, although in a high pitch that could bother some. I got used to him though and like him a lot. Very emotional. Many times I hear him, I get chills.
Bass also plays an important role on the album. The instrument is in the hands of Joey Vera. Google his name, if you don't know him.
I didn't mention the guitarist yet, Jim Matheos, one of the brains of the band. And although he is a good guitar player, he also wrote this album alone, which is just awesome. A guitarist, who doesn't push himself in the front, but who is a great songwriter and acts like a real team player.
Back to the album itself, it is quite different from a standard album. It is basically one song, a whole journey with different feelings and moods throughout it. Different shades of gray. :)
It is not an easy journey, it is hard to remember individual songs, although the album is divided in tracks. There are choruses or lines that stick into your head, but this is not something that you just hear once and you already can't get out from your ears.
There are some recurrent themes, those might be easier to grab at first listen.
It is hard for me also to talk about the individual parts. The favorite is always what I just listen to, like now the keyboard parts of Part VIII, then the heavier sound and how that transitions to the more silent keyboard only section, that is followed by Joey's bass line and a then a rhythm reminding me of Perfect Symmetry or Dream Theater's Imagine and Words.
We can also hear Matheos' clean/classical guitar, with a somewhat Spanish sound on this track, something that was also present on other albums (Inside Out's Monument is a good example).
I don't want to get into lyrics, as I am not a native speaker. I always approach music from a musical point, the lyrics were secondary for me usually, as for a long time I didn't even understood them. But I learned English by trying to understand lyrics. ;)
It might be just my interpretation that the whole album is about the feeling of a departure from something or someone (your loved one?). Read the lyrics and listen the music, and watch what you feel.
Best is to do with your headphones on and in the dark. Believe me.
Since then Fates Warning released three new albums, not much in 18 years. They are all good and I might write about them at some point, as I might write also about their previous work. But if you ask me what Fates Warning is about and what I should listen, I'd say anytime: A Pleasant Shade of Gray.
