PARALLELS

An Excellent Prog Met Album in a different vein than Dream Theater .

Since previous album "Perfect Symmetry", the band has pushed their musical envelope into prog arena. This album is I think much prog than the previous one in these dimensions: the musical composition and musician's style. Mark Zonder's drumming style is truly amazing man .!!! It's definitely a prog style of drumming. Ray Alder's singing style is not a kind of straight forward singing but it has some great bends of singing stream with great variation of high and low points. Jim Matheos is - as usual - performs his guitar uniquely and it's very stunning. Musically, this is not a traditional prog met or Dream Theater like music at all. There are some guitar riffs, but it's not as heavy or as intense as Dream Theater's or Symphony X. Fatez Warning (oops .. sorry for misspelling as it is written in the DT Images and Words sleeve note as reciprocity act on the misspelling of Dream Theatre in FW sleeve) music is categorized under its own box, I think. The close proximity is probably with Pain of Salvation or Queensryche - Ray Alder's voice is in a way similar with Geoff Tate's even though musically it's different kind of music.

The album starts with Leave The Past Behind in an ambient vocal style augmented with guitar fills. The drum starts to roll after some bass lines and bring the music into faster tempo with a dynamic drumming and tight bass lines. Guitar than plays rhythm section followed with other guitar solo as the lead. Short guitar solo is performed stunningly during choruses. Ray Alder's powerful voice has nailed a very strong and unique music nuance. It's an excellent album opener.

Life In Still Water starts with some soft riffs followed with an energetic music in relatively fast tempo, faster then the album opener. Again, Mr Zonder impresses me his "acrobatic" drumming. I think he's one of the best rock drummers. The music itself is uplifting with some long sustain guitar sound and stunning solo. James LaBrie of Dream Theater contributes his part on vocal line even though Alder's voice is much dominant. I hardly hear LaBrie's voice actually.

Eye To Eye's opening sounds like any hard rock tunes with some guitar riffs and melody. But when the voice line enters, it creates a a prog nuance until the lyric part "eye to eye" where the music is truly like a hard rock one especially when I hear the guitar riffs and drumming. It sounds like rock bands such as Europe, etc.

The Eleventh Hour starts off with a nice guitar fills in the vein of 70s prog followed with a vocal line sung in a mellow style. The music turns louder with extremely powerful voice of Mr. Ray Alder (in the vein of Mr. Geoff Tate's voice) with a very high register notes! Oh man . I think he is also one of the great rock singers on planet earth! Yeah ... the music is turning up with beautiful guitar work by Mr. Matheos. This is the track that has made my adrenaline EXPLODE!! Great composition and technically flawless delivery. Great track!

Point Of View begins with an upbeat tempo style dominated by drum sound and some soft guitar riffs. The music turns into a quieter passage to let vocal enters the music with Mr. Alder's powerful voice. It's another great track with acrobatic drumming style. This track has an uplifting mode from start to end. Guitar solo is truly stunning; performed in high register notes. There is a nice segment where the two guitars are played in alternate between Matheos and Frank Aresti. The only downside is that this track ends up with through fading out. But this is more on personal taste because I don't like a song that fades out at the end.

We Only Say Goodbye is a relatively mellow track at the opening; it moves up in a more upbeat tempo. The music turns quiet in the middle of the track to accompany some accentuation on vocal line. It returns back to original upbeat tempo. Guitar works appear in solo style and sometimes the two guitars are played together that reminds me to Iron Maiden's music.

Don't Follow Me starts off in relatively fast tempo in an energetic style. Drum works still play its important roles especially in providing variations around transition. The interlude part is filled with double guitar sounds played in alternates. Bass lines are composed excellently.

The Road Goes On Forever concludes the album with an opening that is filled with guitar fills produced from two guitars plus voice line. It's wonderful combination of guitar sounds and it helps enrich this song. When drumming enters the music, the tempo is maintained the same from opening part. Guitar solo is performed in a soft way, benefiting from the use of two guitarists.

Overall, this album has a very tight composition and flawless delivery. Musicianship is excellent: Matheos, Zonder, Alder, Joe DiBiase. As my friend ever told me: there is no such bad album of Fates Warning, this one is not an exception. Recommended. Keep on progging!

Yours progressively,

GW - Indonesia.

This would be the first time Terry Brown produced one of their albums. Recorded at Metalworks in Toronto. The band would thank Gil Moore the drummer for TRIUMPH and owner of Metalworks, as well they thank DREAM THEATER and WATCHTOWER. Speaking of DREAM THEATER, James LaBrie sings backup on the track "Life In Still Water". Hugh Syme would do the album cover. So there is a definite Toronto connection with this album, they even wrote "We Only Say Goodbye" on the shores of Lake Ontario. Of course LaBrie is from Ontario as well, he actually grew up in a town about 25 miles from where I live and grew up.This album is more commercial then the previous one "Perfect Symmetry" and not nearly as complex either. A testimony to this is the fact that no less then 4 songs from this album are on their greatest hits compilation "Chasing Time".

"Leave The Past Behind" opens slowly with fragile vocals and gentle guitar.The song picks up and the main melody features the guitars churning it out while Ray sings passionately. Some scorching guitar 4 minutes in sound great ! This is a really good song. Ray's vocals fit perfectly with this style of music, as they did on "Perfect Symmetry". "Life In the Still Water" features the ever-present guitars that grind it out, and the drumming from Zonder is amazing as usual. He's definitely not as "out front" as he was on "Perfect Symmetry" though. Some nice guitar solos on this song as well. "Eye To Eye" was the first song where they wrote the lyrics before the music.This was the second single that was released off this record and it has some tasteful guitar throughout with fantastic vocals.

"The Eleventh Hour" is one of my favourite FATES WARNING songs post "Awaken The Guardian". Someone from the band said if one song could define the band it would be "The Eleventh Hour". An atmospheric intro with light drums and gentle guitar. Ray's vocals are fragile as it all seems so haunting until about 3 minutes in when the song starts to come alive. Best part of the album is the guitar solo followed by Ray's battle cry vocals. "Point Of View" is perhaps the hardest hitting song on the record. Zonder has said it's his favourite off the album to play live. It opens with some great bass from DiBiase and the lead guitars again grind it out. Great tune ! "We Only Say Goodbye" is a surprisingly good song for being so ballad-like. One of my favourites. "Don't Follow Me" is a more uptempo song, while "The Road Goes On Forever" is a slow, atmospheric song with percussion throughout. The guitar to open is beautiful.

Excellent record from the band ! This new accessible direction the band took didn't please all their fans, but this one comes highly recommended.

3.5 realy

After the briliant Perfect Symmetry , one of the best prog metal albums in history of the genre, Fates Warning comes with another worthy release named Paralles from 1991. Besides the fact that the album got very good reviews all over the world I don't think Paralles is as good as Perfect Symmetery. I mean is in a good Fates Warning style, as we used to with last two albums with Alder on voice, but this time FW tries a little more mainstream sound, quite accesible in places. Still some great arrangements like on Eye To Eye, Point Of View, We Only Say Goodbye and The Eleventh Hour , these pieces shows Fates Warning still has great potential to deliver something great and yet complex enough to please most of the prog metal fans. Also another thing that is important is that LaBrie features here on Life is still water on backing vocals, in that time not yet the giant vocalist will be with Dream Theater later on.Mark Zonder did a splendid job again, great drumer, very complex chops and very intristing aswell, Alder voice is again great on every track. So a good album for sure, but not as good as Perfect symmetry , the best they ever done, IMO. The cover art is excellent, and goes hand in hand with the music.

"Parallels" is the 6th full-length studio album by US progressive metal act Fates Warning. The album was released in October 1991 by Metal Blade Records. "Parallels" was re-issued in 2010 in a Deluxe Edition. In addition to the original album, The Deluxe Edition contains a bonus CD with live tracks and demo tracks and a bonus DVD which features a full concert recorded live in New Haven, Connecticut on February the 13th, 1992. Fates Warning had with each album, since their inception in the early eighties, added more and more progressive elements into their heavy metal sound culminating with the release of their, at the time, most progressive release "Perfect Symmetry (1989)". If the fans had expected an even more progressive release with "Parallels", those expectations weren´t met.

...in fact Fates Warning crafted a much more melodically accessible and subtle progressive metal release in "Parallels". The album features a pleasant warm atmosphere and mellow thoughtful melodies. A stark contrast to the cold, hard and at times even aggressive sound on "Perfect Symmetry". While the tracks on "Parallels" are certainly progressive, they are not progressive in an abrasive fashion and I see why some people would question if "Parallels" is a progressive metal album or actually more a melodic heavy metal album. If you listen closely to the music you´ll find plenty of time signature changes, unusual off-beat drumming and other features that are usually associated with progressive metal. Other than the 8:11 minutes long "The Eleventh Hour", which features a moderately complex structure, the song structures aren´t terribly adventurous but again there are subtle progressive details in all tracks that keep the tracks interesting throughout. The most obviously progressive tracks on the album are the above mentioned "The Eleventh Hour", the opening track "Leave the Past Behind", "Life in Still Water" and "Point of View". Tracks like "Eye to Eye", "We Only Say Goodbye" and "Don't Follow Me" are very accessible and some people might say commercial sounding, but all three tracks feature subtle time-signature changes and off-beat playing that ensure a progressive edge. I guess the only track I haven´t mentioned is the closing track "The Road Goes on Forever". A beautiful mellow/ soft and again subtly progressive track and a perfect closing track (check the lead guitar part in that track. Just beautiful).

One of the defining features in Fates Warning´s sound at this point in their career (besides the clever and sophisticated drumming by Mark Zonder which is also a feature that stands out a lot) is how the two guitarists (Jim Matheos and Frank Aresti) compliment each other´s playing. Jim Matheos plays a lot of clean (non-distorted) electric guitar parts under the distorted rythm and lead guitars by Frank Aresti. The consequence is a layered "busy" soundscape that´s very characteristic for this era Fates Warning. The dynamic it gives, that you have both mellow/ soft clean guitars playing at the same time as heavy distored guitars, is vast. Many metal releases suffer from the fact that the bass is either too low in the mix or that it just follows the guitar, but that´s certainly not the case with "Parallels". Joe DiBiase is a very active part of what makes the sound on the album so special. You´ll often notice his sophisticated yet powerful playing. Lead vocalist Ray Alder delivers an emotional and paatos filled vocal performance. His vocal style on "Parallels" is quite different from his style on "Perfect Symmetry". He sang in a very high pitched screaming vocal style on that album and while his vocals are still occasionally high pitched on "Parallels", he mostly utilizes more "human" registers and lower volumes too, which gives his performance a more varied sound than on earlier releases. The lyrics on the album mostly evolve around broken relationships and emotions.

"Parallels" is superbly produced by Terry Brown (Rush, Voivod, The Rolling Stones, Lizzy Borden...etc). A perfect sound which emphasize both mellow warmth and colder edge. A very suiting dynamic sound production to these ears.

"Parallels" has been a favorite of mine for many years now. It´s one of those albums that gets several spins in a row when I listen to it, because I simply can´t graps how good it is and I always discover a little detail I hadn´t heard before. Very few albums have that effect on me and of course "Parallels" deserve a 5 star rating.

Leaving the past behind (slightly)

Following the influential Perfect Symmetry album, the almost equally excellent Parallels saw Fates Warning transforming a little bit. Moving slightly from more underground towards more mainstream Metal. This album is thus a little bit less complex and more melodic, less progressive if you like, a more polished production. The ambition was probably to attract a wider audience without alienating the already converted. But the energetic riffs are still here. My own initial impression was less favourable to this album, but it has grown on me a lot since I first heard it. Even if it does not quite rival Perfect Symmetry, it is certainly one of the best albums by the band.

There is a nice variation between slower and faster tempos and between riffs and melodies, but I miss the slightly richer variation in instrumentation found on Perfect Symmetry. I might be wrong, but I hear a bit of Rush here in addition to the more traditional Judas Priest and Iron Maiden influences. The band sounds confident and professional and they are clearly a well-oiled machine.

Another very good Fates Warning album and a highly recommended companion to Perfect Symmetry

There's was life on Earth before Dream Theater!

When Images and Words was eructed from DT's esophagus, it's like the world stop turning and the All Mighty blessed us with another messiah. The future of progressive metal was in the hands of 5 guys: one singing too high, one playing too fast, one talking too much, one talking not enough and one given too little chances to speak. Game: find who is who.

The world before Images and Words was okay with me. It was a time when pyrotechnics were just powders mixed together to make bright colors, and not a guy with a goatee shredding the strings of his guitar to show the girls how it's done. There was Fates Warning, a band that knew how to take it's time to make a song that's both catchy and technical. Now the bar is set so high that kids forget what is intelligent music, music that feeds your soul and not just numbs your brain with dizzy speed.

This album not only sports a thoughtful cover, but also has a growing potential on you. It may be not the most complex thing written ever, but how needs it anyway? Life is already complicated enough, and frankly, Gentle Giant, Frank Zappa or Anglagard made the cut for being mind-blowing-complexity-but-forgiven-easily-since-it's-such-awesome-music; so let them worry about that.

When you're listening to Parallels, you're letting your mind wonder just right, not too fast but enough to fulfill your desire to unwind stress from your crappy week. The guitars are sharp (but not blistering hot), the bass is audible (ahem ahem John Myung), the drums are well thought (but not double bass drum and 3rd arm hidden somewhere), but it's just not too much.

To me, Parallels is a very good example of the right elements of crunchiness wrapped into a rich chocolate accessiblilty.

Feel free to chew.

This site has been keeping my iPhone screen glowing during many of my daily commutes on the train. It's a feverish pastime of mine now to look up bands I know and see how they fair among the reviewers and also to seek out artists that are new to me. Fates Warning should have been in my collection from long ago because I sought out every metal band I read about back in the mid-eighties. That I didn't know of them is even more surprising considering that I loved both Iron Maiden and Queensryche, two of the other progenitors of progressive metal in the 80s.

Not sure where to start, I usually read the reviews of a band's top-rated albums on this site before visiting Amazon and giving the short song samples a run through. I also sometimes look up an album on YouTube for full-length songs. The album recommended for Fates Warning was Perfect Symmetry but Parallels was several bucks worth cheaper on Amazon (no re-mastered version with a bonus DVD), and so without any prior listen I ordered the CD, expecting to hear something along the lines of Iron Maiden, Queensryche and Dream Theater.

What I got was rather disappointing. The first song, Leave the Past Behind starts out with a prog metal flair but soon transforms into something very much like a slower number by Queensryche, or perhaps rather by a Queensryche cover band. On I went to the next song and the next, neither of them particularly standing out. Eye to Eye sounds like The Warning era Queensryche meets No One Like You by Scorpions. The Eleventh Hour is praised as being a signature song of Fates Warning but it wasn't until my fifth listen that I began to find guitar parts I like and my foot started tapping. Ray Alder just sounds too much like Geoff Tate and the guitar sound is very much like Queensryche, too.

On the first listen, by the time the last track The Road Goes on Forever ended I realized that I hadn't even noticed when the last few songs had started and ended. The real test for me is to throw a bunch of albums (or randomly selected songs from albums) onto a playlist and hit shuffle as I spend the hour it takes to commute to and from work. If a song comes on that pricks up my ears, I take more interest in the album. I did this with Parallels but whenever a song from this album came on all I could think of was a watered down Queensryche.

What is it about this album that's just not working for me? One is the sound quality. I have a 1991 version and the instruments and vocals just lack sonic depth. Another is that whenever I try to listen carefully to the music, I hear mostly standard 4/4 beat drumming with few fills, bar chords just keeping up with the chord of the melody without any awesome metal riffs, and a bass guitar that... just does nothing to stand out. It's people like Terry Butler of Black Sabbath, Geddy Lee of Rush and Chris Squire of Yes who got me turned on to the sound of the bass guitar. It's very much a background instrument here. Oh, there are some parts where the drum beat goes off the usual 4/4 time and the guitars do play some cool distorted riffs but it all sounds very lackluster to me. As I mentioned above, I was a rabid metal fan in the 80's and by 1989 I had over 300 cassettes in my collection. This album by Fates Warning... I feel like I have heard it all before. Perhaps if I had heard this album in 1985 I would have been blown away.

What I feel about this album is that Fates Warning managed to come up with easy-listening metal because there is not much edge or bite here. A lot of songs actually begin with a metal riff but the excitement drops off as every song gears down for the first verse. It's a tiresome formula: start with a cool metal sound then turn it down and go all mellow until the chorus. I think about 5 songs follow this formula on this album. And if progressive metal includes quick tricky passages, abrupt changes to melody and even key mid-song, and odd time signatures with staccato blast lead breaks then there's none of that here. It makes for a good melodic metal album but I can't say I can recommend this as a real prog rock or prog metal album. Many reviewers praise this album but I am not hearing it as a master piece. Perhaps I really need to focus on the music. As it is, my mind keeps wandering whenever I play a track from this album.

I wouldn't say that Fates Warning are not a good prog metal band. Perhaps buying Parallels first instead of Perfect Symmetry would be like buying Hold Your Fire by Rush instead of Power Windows or Going for the One by Yes instead of Relayer or Close to the Edge. I might have just missed hearing their best work and thus just missed being blown away. I feel a bit bad giving this a low rating but as a melodic metal album I think it's just good and nothing more and as prog metal metal I find it lacking. But I will be checking out some of their other albums. Hopefully I'll be more impressed with my next purchase.

Ray Alder's 3rd album with Fates Warning, Parallels, feels like a powerful return to form to me. As well as adapting to Alder's vocal range more effectively, the band are also able to properly integrate Mark Zonder's technical wizardry on the drums and seem to have clawed back the tendency to get technical for technical's sake that turned me off of Perfect Symmetry. Instead, by clawing back some of the melodicism they had previously set aside the band are able to strike a balance between progressive ambition, emotional resonance and widespread accessibility, so it's no surprise that the album was another success for the band. It's a good starting point for their 1990s sound, though I tend to prefer their 1980s material.

Review Nº 140

"Parallels" is the sixth studio album of Fates Warning and was released in 1991. The line up on the album is Ray Alder (lead vocals), Jim Matheos (guitar), Frank Aresti (guitar), Joe DiBiase (bass) and Mark Zonder (drums and percussion). The album had also the participation of James Labrie (backing vocals) and John Bailey (computer sequencing).

Fates Warning is probably the earliest example of the merging of the Progressive musical approaches of bands such as Rush and the heavy metal genre as pioneered by some other bands. They have had sort of an unofficial rivalry with another pioneering band of the progressive metal genre, Queensryche. However and according to the critics, their music is actually about as comparable as night and day. While the Seattle based quintet was mixing keyboards in and delving into political concepts, this group of musicians from Connecticut dealt mostly with mystical themes. Anyway, this album is somehow a bit of a departure from that approach in favor of a more philosophical approach.

When in 1991 Fates Warning created "Parallels", we can say they created one of their best, most important and coherent albums. Their sound keeps evolving through time, providing the progressive metal field with unique and astonishing moments. "Parallels" is, in my humble opinion, a great place to start with Fates Warning, especially if you've never heard them before. I feel that "Parallels" marks their perfect transition from their old school roots to their more atmospheric experimental progressive phase. This album lies somewhere in between with guitarist Matheos focusing his attention and power on more concise songs, developed melodies and mapped out compositions.

"Parallels" has eight tracks. All tracks were written by Matheos. The first track "Leave The Past Behind" is a very Rush like piece, with sparkling acoustics that slowly build into a steady, captivating bass and the mechanical guitar chords of the prior album. The chorus is fairly obvious, but certainly a winner if you are a fan of "Perfect Symmetry". It's an effective opening track and very comfortable too. The second track "Life In Still Water" seems anything but still, as the volley of lush chords and Zonder's electronic drum fills splash about the surface. The latter half of the verse is great, for the ringing guitars that sear over the shaking bass, and it builds to an appropriate chorus climax. The third track "Eye To Eye" forges a resonant intro with more of the brazen acoustics and calm but hooky metal rhythm ensues, a precursor to the tranquil lament of the verse. Again, the chorus feels predictable and subdued, and there is simply nothing else here of note except a very safe lead. The fourth track "The Eleventh Hour" is the lengthiest track on the album and arguably one of the best. The curtains part for a lurid dreamscape of sombre, shining cleans and effects, while Alder embarks on a journey of escalating isolation. Just before the 3:00, the hard chords arrive and herald an epic stream of melody. But the best moment of the song is beyond 6:00, with an excellent guitar pattern that plays off the central rhythm. The fifth track "Point Of View" represents a familiar pattern with the melodic, urgent chords over the potent, but understated rock beat. It's a decent tune, and in particular I enjoy Alder's performance in the chorus, an edgy banshee keening its message through a still night. The sixth track "We Only Say Goodbye" is another excellent track and it's almost embarrassing to say it because it sounds a bit pop. It's a super calming and catchy song. It seems to be a song made to some sort of massive US radio presence. I can almost picture that all Fates Warning fans being sick to death of hearing it on every classic rock radio station in their region. However, it remains a great track. The seventh track "Don't Follow Me" puts us back on the path to the band's previous album, with a huge, forward melody recalling "Through Different Eyes" or "Static Acts", parting for another of the band's safe, moody verses before a decent chorus and great spry lead guitar. The eighth track "The Road Goes Forever" concludes the album with an opening that is filled with guitar fills produced from two guitars plus voice line. It's the wonderful combination of guitar sounds that helps enrich this song. This is almost a track in the feel of a power ballad. It's a great ending for the album.

Conclusion: "Parallels" is an album highly accessible to fans of metal outside of progressive circles. Some fans of progressive metal might be a bit disappointed with this one, but it has a lot of the same strengths that "Perfect Symmetry" has, just in a set of songs with simpler structures and less odd time references. This is where people no longer ignored the fact that an album could be both progressive and melodic at the same time. "Parallels" is a good album to get into Fates Warning. If you like this, you'll love their 1994 release "Inside Out" as well. If you, however, want something heavier, all you need is to go backwards and pick up "Perfect Symmetry". That should give you some idea of this amazing band's growth and metamorphosis. Then you can concentrate on their earlier 80's releases and late 90's greatest masterpiece, "A Pleasant Shade Of Gray". Anyway, there are no bad albums of Fates Warning, really.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)