13. Fates Warning The Spectre Within 1985 (Metal Blade)
Heavy Metal
Evil eyes staring through olden walls of stone.
The Lowdown
Fates Warning were very much one of the flagship bands of Metal Blade so much so that Metal Blade head honcho Brain Slagel, had an almost personal stake in the band with production duties for their first three albums. Fates Warning along with Queensryche, were probably two of the first known metal bands from this period to be labelled as ‘progressive metal’ as the scope of their material and arrangements went beyond what a lot of other metal bands were laying down within the criteria of metaldom at this time. Fates Warning much like Queensryche had that heavy Iron Maiden influence to their sound and those progressive leanings of Iron Maiden would lend heavily onto the Fates Warning sound, but the the Connecticut band were more intent on taking that Iron Maiden influence to their own conclusion. Their debut album the often highly rated
Night on Brocken which just missed my previous year list (so much completion in 1984) never really quite did it for me despite having some strong tracks like “Damnation” but to be honest I’m much more of a Ray Alder fan on vocals than the John Arch era of the band anyway, so with that in mind Fates Warning will feature more heavily as these lists go by. Nevertheless
The Spectre Within is a strong and complex sounding piece of work with the progressive elements of the band being more noticeable this time around compared to the debut. So how progressive are one of the very first metal bands to be labelled ‘progressive metal’ really on this album? To be honest to my mind and ears not very, rather than being progressive most of the tracks starting with the impressive seven minute album opener “Traveler in Time” sound to me like riff-heavy compositions with a distorted melodic speed metal vein running through them and this becomes even more evident by track two on “Orphan Gypsy” where the band are now starting to sound extremely complex, but it can be argued that there is a thin line at times anyway between technical metal and progressive metal. Overall the band do have a number of progressive elements, but by and large this is more of a case of a metal band just ‘pushing the envelope’ as it were and they would indeed push it even further on the following year’s
Awaken the Guardian which is considered the best release of the John Arch era, but it’s really with the Ray Alder era where the progressive label really does apply and an era where the band opened the door to better known progressive metal bands like Dream Theater. As said above the progressive element for a band like Fates Warning is important, as they are deemed to be a progressive band rather than a band that has just adopted a progressive angle on some of their songs. For this reason their John Arch albums are not really as progressive as the label would suggest, but they’re good metal albums by and large, which is the reason why
The Spectre Within has found its place on this year’s listing. The band do spend a lot of time on this album showboating their riff-heavy style with long instrumental intros to a number of songs like “Pirates of the Underground” and their monster riffs never get any better than they do on a song like "Apparition". The most progressive track on the album is probably the eleven minute closer "Epitaph" which besides sounding like a progressive track actually has John Arch sounding like Eric Bloom of BOC in places on the song. Getting into Fates Warning at this time normally requires a number of requirements such as liking their distinctive distorted melodic style of the band, combined with the complex playing and vocals of John Arch who may not be everybody’s cup of tea, largely due to his ability to to sound like a combination of Bruce Dickinson meets King Diamond and then sounding like somebody is throttling him at the same time. But most of all John Arch reminds me of Andre Matos of Angra another unique sounding vocalist, which kind of reveals that besides being an influence of progressive metal, that the band both musically and vocally were equally important to the power metal sub-genre as well. After this release guitarist Frank Alesti would replace Victor Arduini, which of course would lead to a further completion of the Fates Warning musical puzzle.
John Arch – Vocals
Jim Matheos – Guiitar
Victor Arduini – Guitar
Joe DiBiase – Bass
Jim Archambault – Keyboards
Steve Zimmerman – Drums
Production- Brian Slagel