Jim Matheos tagged posts

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...

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...

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...

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...

Ok, some of you probably know that the term “true“ has become sort of a laughingstock, especially in underground circles, but this term is exactly what I am going to use in order to describe the greatness I deal with in this review. That’s right, Arch / Matheos is definitely the best TRUE progressive metal album of the year, so far.

Although the duo worked together on the first three Fates Warning records and on Arch’s solo work A Twist of Fate (2003), that was by no means their most mature, most engaging and most successful collaboration. In the year where progressive metal brings both disappointments and ardour, it’s pretty clear where Sympathetic Resonance stands.

With new albums by Symphony X (average incarnate), Pain of Salvation (long time no prog metal), Leprous (a most pleasant s...

In which Tim Bowness of No Man fame and Giancarlo Erra from Italy’s Nosound get together to blend the former’s breathy dreamy vocals to the latter’s laid back spacey soundscapes and guitar playing, all ably aided and abetted by the multifarious talents of Robert Fripp, Colin Edwin, Steven Wilson (mainly production duties), Peter Hammill, Julianne Regan and others. With a cast like that it is difficult to see how this could fail, and it doesn’t let you down!

Starting off sounding like a more full on No Man album, no bad thing, the sound fills out as we move from song to song...