PARALLELS

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.