Fates Warning tagged posts

After 6 years of absolute silence, Danish Beyond Twilight mastermind Finn Zierler has returned from the shadows with Zierler Projects.

Zierler Projects is a progressive metal super group consisting of:

Finn Zierler – Keyboards (Beyond Twilight)
Bobby Jarzombek – Drums (Rob Halford, Fates Warning, Arch/Matheos, Sebastian Bach, Iced Earth)
Per Nilsson – Guitars and Bass (Scar Symmetry, Kaipa),
Kelly Sundown Carpenter – Vocals (Beyond Twilight, Darkology, Epysode, Outworld) and
Truls Haugen – Vocals and Bass live (Insense, Circus Maximus).

Zierler Projects was a closely guarded secret until the first matrix’s formation was announced on 26th. November 2012.

Zierler said, “I’ve had the idea in mind for some time now...

Prog rock supergroups are generally consistent in two ways. First, they are bound to create a level of excitement for the fans of whatever artists involved, and second, they almost always disappoint. While jazz ‘super’ groups work because that style is focused on the musicianship and skill of the members, it’s rare that a group of established musicians will put a great deal of effort or ambition into a project that isn’t part of their ‘flagship’ band. Regardless, OSI has proven itself to be more than a one-off venture. Leading this group is keyboardist Kevin Moore, who most will know for his tenure in the ‘classic’ lineup of Dream Theater, although he has kept himself busy since leaving, be it through his solo work with Chroma Key, or his keyboard contributions to Fates Warning...

Rewind back a pair of decades, back to the time around the release of US progressive metal act Fate’s Warning’s third album, ‘Awaken The Guardian’. Unable to pay his bills with the band income alone, singer John Arch was working hard with a dayjob to make ends meet. On top of that, he had a band pressuring him to choose one or the other. At that, he was forced to leave the band, and Fate’s Warning then found a new vocalist in the form of Ray Alder. After that, Arch stayed out of the music scene for the better part of two decades, until a two song bout of musical inspiration gave in the form of a solo EP, ‘A Twist Of Fate’. If that was any indicator, it was true that the man who led Fate’s Warning through their early work still had the pipes to hold his own quite brilliantly...

Being formed by members of Symphony X and Fate’s Warning, it does not come as much of a surprise that Redemption are one of the most talked about progressive metal bands these days. Now close to a decade old, this supergroup has now put out five albums, all falling within a fairly close style to its parent acts. ‘This Mortal Coil’ is the most recent album from these titans, and anyone who has heard what Redemption is all about before should have a good idea of what to expect here. Redemption’s latest falls into an ever-growing category of albums that while incredibly impressive from a production and performance standpoint, ultimately fails to move me in any way...

Save for the twenty one minute long ‘Ivory Gate of Dreams,’ there isn’t too much of a progressive theme to be found on this album. There is certainly some progressiveness to the other songs, but that’s the song that gives this release such a ground breaking element to it. Until then, there really wasn’t too much of a progressive metal scene going on. Having a song cycle of such epic proportions thrown into a genre that was generally (at the time) about drinking, women and drugs was quite a shock to the system.

However, everything considered, I’m still not a big Fates Warning fan. I find Ray Alder is a technically accomplished vocalist, but I simply don’t like his voice all too much...

‘Penumbra Diffuse’ comes hot on the heels of one of my favourite tech metal albums ever; ‘Sublimation’. Throughout their career, Canvas Solaris have been incredibly consistent since their debut, each time pursuing a very cerebral brand of instrumental music, complex and rife with atmosphere. When compared to the album that came before it, ‘Penumbra Diffuse’ is a marked step towards favouring the atmospheric side of their work. Although not quite reaching the mind-boggling intensity of ‘Sublimation’, the greater variety of styles and dynamic is an effective development.

Having become quite familiar with the Canvas Solaris records ‘Cortical Tectonics’ and ‘Sublimation’, the technical prowess of the band is virtually taken for granted this time around...

In series of re-releasing the older outputs of one of the most revered names in Metal Blade roster Fates Warning, the time has come to give Inside Out the new treatment and the album has been given new nice life with this rich package that is true “value for money“ deal so if even you already have the original edition you would be tempted to buy this 2012′s re-release, but let’s go one step at a time…

CD1 contains the remastered edition of original album that came out in 1994 and represented the logical successor to 1991’s Parallels, the album that represented more concise of song oriented Fates Warning. As I have said, Inside Out is natural successor with its more song oriented approach so it could be even called non prog metal from prog metallers – it still carries the intricate p...

The theme of this episode of ProgSphere’s AwesomeCast is obscure progressive metal of 1990′s and 2000′s. It was brought to you by David Lazar Galić, bass player of Serbian modern metal outfit Draconic.

After the notoriety gained by bands like Queensryche, Dream Theater, and to a lesser extent, Fates Warning, in the early 1990s, a new wave of metal bands emulating these sounds sprung forth to create an excellent underground metal scene in the later part of the decade. As with every scene, dozens of mediocre copycats of the “big three” surfaced, but again, as with every scene, a bunch of really cool bands crafting an original style of progressive metal cropped up as well.

As a big fan of the “big three” I became enamored with this scene as a teenager, and thanks to the Internet, I was...

Although OSI began as a supergroup pairing between Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos and former Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore, a string of critically successful records has gone to establish the band with a sound that is all its own. Although it’s undeniable that a great deal of OSI’s initial recognition and exposure was due to Matheos and Moore’s history with two of prog metal’s titans, they have since developed a fairly signature sound for this project. ‘Fire Make Thunder’ is the fourth journey from this collaboration, and while a similar sound to those of past OSI material is still strongly evident here, the album feels no less relevant to progressive rock in 2012...

So here it is, the end of 2011. It’s probably been the biggest music year of my life, at least in terms of listening to the work of others is concered. I’ve probably listened to about two or three hundred albums this year, and it was pretty difficult to pick out the best of the best. There was plenty of mediocre stuff I heard, but there are more than enough records that came out of 2011 that I’ll be taking with me well into 2012. For most of these albums, I have included a link to the review I originally wrote for it. I understand that what’s written in the reviews may not align with what I say here, but my opinions are fluid and have evolved over the course of the year...