Transience, disconnection and the search for solid ground. Themes of upcoming change -ĭeliberate choices to take a different direction in life – are a large part of the album’s overarching themes of The album’s galvanizing, exciting, go-back-and-listen-Īgain moments are too numerous to mention.Īs main lyricist, vocalist Ray Alder had plenty of musical emotion to work with. Samples and soundscapes within “The Ghosts Of Home” sets an almost theatrical tone for what might be theĪlbum’s emotional climax, all 10-and-a-half minutes of it. The calmer middle breakdown of “SOS” introduces a ghostly drone that changes a mysterious mood to pure dread ĭrummer Bobby Jarzombek’s nearly inhuman dexterity in parts of “From The Rooftops” is something to behold the Once you have the first couple songs down, then a direction starts to present itself and you take it more inĪpparently it all came rushing out in a flood, evidenced by the myriad of highlights throughout Theories Of Flight. I don’t sit down and have a specific idea of where I want to go. Whatever comes up, I’m just happy that something comes up, and I let that take me in the direction that “Iĭon’t usually look at it as ‘what do I want to do?,’ I’m usually just consumed by terror that I won’t come up withĪnything. “About a year afterĭarkness, I started gathering ideas and getting serious about it.”Īs for the direction Theories Of Flight, which was produced by Jim Matheos and mixed/mastered by Jens BogrenĪt Fascination Street Studios (Opeth, Symphony X, Haken, etc.), eventually took, Jim let his muse lead the way. “I started writing in January 2015,” says guitarist and main composer Jim Matheos. was the first album release since 2004’s FWX, its own follow-up took considerably less time toĮmerge. With hooky, melodic burners such as “Seven Stars” and “SOS” leading to the more involved “The Light And Shade Of Things,” and even more light and shade beyond that, until the dramatic title track concludes the journey, Theories Of Flight’s 53 minutes is definitive Fates Warning. With the aforementioned core four providing most of the performances, occasional Fates member Frank Aresti performs guitar solos on “From The Rooftops” and “White Flag,” while current touring member Michael Abdow also has a guitar solo spot on the latter tune. Subdued parts are that much more lush, while other moments strike with ferocity not heard on a Fates album in quite some time. It even pushes the goalposts of the previous album out a bit further in each direction. Performed by the core lineup that returned to form with 2013’s Darkness In A Different Light (guitarist Jim Matheos, vocalist Ray Alder, bassist Joey Vera, and drummer Bobby Jarzombek), Fates Warning’s twelfth album, Theories Of Flight, is a new facet of the band’s signature mix of melodic finesse, high-level performance and brooding melancholy. One listen to the textures, momentum, attack and emotion in “From The Rooftops,” and it’s apparent that the band who defined progressive metal with albums such as Awaken The Guardian, Perfect Symmetry, Parallels and A Pleasant Shade Of Gray has plenty of new paths to travel. Right from the impressive first minutes of their new album, Fates Warning proves itself to be one of those rare veteran bands capable of delivering new material as poignant and powerful as their many high points of the past.
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