A TWIST OF FATE (EP)

You've already read the story behind this release in the other reviews, so I'll get straight to what I have to say about this EP. Both of the tracks on this disc occasionally hint at the old Fates Warning sound, which is very welcome after all this time, but on the whole they sound much closer to Dream Theater. The funny thing is that I don't really like Dream Theater much at all, but Arch makes this sound completely work for me. It's like he managed to combine all the best elements of Dream Theater while leaving out all the annoying parts.

I really find it amazing that someone could return after seventeen years of complete absence from the music world and manage to come up with something so splendid and refined right away. Both songs go through many different moods and show a lot of variety; there's simply an abundance of great musical ideas on display here, and the performance just sounds so passionate. Musicianship is as excellent as is to be expected from the people involved, and the production is flawless.

All of this combined makes this the single most impressive piece of modern Prog Metal (in the narrower sense) that I've heard yet - a genre that I have a curious difficulty getting into given my overall tastes, but on this release it just all falls into place for me. If you love Dream Theater, you'll probably love this also; if, like me, you don't really like Dream Theater but think they have their moments, you might very well like it nonetheless.