FATES WARNING

I'll admit, I was never much of a progressive metal fan before. I found it boring and not particularly engaging, to say nothing of the fact that I didn't really understand it. But then I listened to the latest creation from FATES WARNING, titled FWX. At first I was rather cool toward the music, but after a couple of tracks, my interest was seriously piqued. There's a wealth of fascinating ideas and musical turns here. And I won't even get into the song structures themselves — this is the very best that the genre has to offer. The sheer variety of arpeggios and the multitude of solo passages are staggering in their technical prowess. It immediately becomes clear that we're dealing with progressive metal veterans. These gentlemen have been proving for more than twenty years that they're among the very best in this music, and this new album is further confirmation. Some compositions put the listener into a kind of trance, thanks to the bass lines that in certain places really stand out against the backdrop of the entire arrangement. Yes, there's no doubt about it — what we have here is so-called intellectual metal.