NO EXIT

It was only to be expected that Fates Warning's first album after the departure of John Arch would be a rather transitional affair, but new frontman Ray Adler hits the ground running and the band do much better under the circumstances than many other groups would have. The first side of the album consists of a series of solid and entertaining enough songs which, despite being fun, have an air of "playing it safe" about them.

All doubts are dispelled, however, with the concluding side-long epic The Ivory Gate of Dreams, in which the band tackle the most complex and challenging progressive metal they'd concocted to date and come up with a true classic of the genre, a piece to rival Rush's 2112 in its importance to prog metal. The first side of the album is three and a half stars, the second is five, so let's say four and a half as a fair compromise.