PERFECT SYMMETRY

Listening to music is a subjective experience. There's your individual taste of course but also the kind of music that you already know, the passing of time, the state of mind you're in, the mood of your cats, and so many other things that can be more decisive in your judgement then the actual music. That's why I do often talk more about myself then about the music in my reviews (yes there was a reason for it). And well, that's exactly what I plan to do here as well.

It was back in 1993 that I gave Fates Warning a first go. Being a huge Psychotic Waltz fan I simply had to check out the heroes of my heroes. I quite randomly bought a 2CD package consisting of The Spectre Within/Night on Bröcken, pretty much based on the artwork alone. Such a cool album art could only contain great music right? Well, I didn't like it a bit to say the least.

Flash forward 10 years. OSI hits the shelves and I'm in instant fan. And hey look! It's that guy from Fates Warning again. I checked out Disconnect and this time I liked it better but still it didn't really gel.

Flash forward another 6 years. I find myself reviewing on prog archives (worse things can happen to you) and other reviewers that definitely share some of my favourite artists appear to be totally into this band. So here we go for a third try, with what is recommended here as their best work.

After checking that my cable is properly plugged into my soundcard during the first seconds of Part Of The Machine, I find myself enjoying Matheos's guitar quite a lot on this one. It reminds me of Coroner's Grin. Yes that is a later album of course (subjective experience again). However, the wrought and slightly strained falsetto of Ray Alder doesn't please me much though. At least it didn't frighten me away. I adored King Diamond's 80's albums so this would sure grow right?

Flash forward a few listens and ... still ... hum, so so. This singing style really hasn't aged well over the last 20 years. I can connect with this music on a rational level but for some reason it doesn't entirely get to me. It's probably worth 4 stars but my appreciation sits around 3 stars.

Had I heard this album back in 1993, I would probably have liked Fates Warning a lot more. In any case I will sure explore and revisit some of their other albums now and let it all grow a bit on me.

To be continued...