SAMPLE IDENTIFICATION

Artist: Fates Warning
Album: Disconnected
Release Year: 2000
Country: United States
Label: Metal Blade
Studio Album No.: 9
Genre(s): Progressive Metal
Tracklist:
1. Disconnected (Part 1) – 01:13
2. One – 04:27
3. So – 08:08
4. Pieces of Me – 04:24
5. Something from Nothing – 10:59
6. Still Remains – 16:08
7. Disconnected (Part 2) – 06:11
Total: 51:30

BACKGROUND

By the time Fates Warning recorded Disconnected the progressive metal band had undergone the usual ups and downs in a career that had already spanned 18 years: commercial successes, critical duds, lineup changes, more accessible poppiness and subsequent backlash, you know the drill. Disconnected is the second album released after a shakeup of the band’s roster, and it follows a similar moody tone as that of its predecessor A Pleasant Shade of Gray with less of a focus on concept (A Please Shade of Gray comprises a single twelve-part 54-minute track) and more of a focus on melody and structured songs. It’s considered by fans as one of Fates Warning’s best albums to date.

METALLURGICAL EVALUATION

Fates Warning is the progressive metal band of choice for those of us who dislike a lot of the campy, over-serious and immature Geoff Tate vehicle Queensrÿche, AND the ultra-sterile, over-technical snoozefest of Dream Theater. From what I’ve heard, and I’ve only heard about half the discography, Fates Warning seems to keep it relatively grounded, refined, and tasteful, not treading into wanky and cheesy territory all too often with overblown power metal grandeur or technical showing-off at the expense of emotionally resonant songwriting. As a bonus, the whole outfit doesn’t seem to be controlled by any particularly difficult personalities. Great! I’m on board before I even hear one note.

Disconnected is unlike most of the albums I’ve heard under the straight, non-extreme “progressive metal” umbrella, and that’s a good thing. One of major hurdles with many flavors of clean-vocals progressive metal is that the songwriting usually favors operatic, overdramatic lyrical storytelling and head-spinning technical virtuosity at the expense of genuinely emotional demonstrations where the actual music is concerned. To put it more succinctly, shit can be boring as shit. What I really like about Disconnected is that there was a conscious attempt on the band’s part to really act like they gave a damn about connecting with a wider audience (ironic given the title). There’s no immature cheesiness, there’s no super-serious displays of ego, there’s no showing off. Hell, there’s not a single guitar solo to be found anywhere! There’s also a strong connection from track to track (also ironic), and while each song’s mood differs from the ones adjacent, the overall feel remains cogent throughout the whole record.

Anyway, exactly why this album is unique is due to the liberal use of tasteful electro-industrial atmospheric keyboards and effects, totally appropriate for the year 2000 and in a way that I believe has aged pretty well. To boot, the album cover perfectly matches the desolate and hopeless wasteland that the musical soundscape paints for the listener and the hint of optimism present as shown by the embracing couple. The upbeat track “One” does betray some minor corniness with its happy-go-lucky message of unity (“Knowing at a glance/Where we all stand/Searching for another chance/To make us all one“), but it’s quickly undercut with the sluggishness and world-weary discouragement of the next track “So” (“Feeling so strong/I feel so inspired/Like a man with all the words/I could move the world/If I weren’t so tired/So, so ti-i-i-i-red…“). Next comes the even more hopeless but fiesty “Pieces of Me”, and then the morose and depressive “Something from Nothing”. But hark, do we finally lift ourselves out of the doldrums during the 16-minute epic suite “Still Remains”? Listen, young reader, and find out for yourself. Or don’t!

The album is bookended by “Disconnected (Part 1)” and its extended reprise, the former serving to set the mood immediately with hot blasts of dirgy mechanical guitar and some aggressive technical drumming, and the later still blasting you with the same guitar but overlaying some sensitive piano to give more of a mellow “everything’s gonna be all right” vibe, closing up the album with the sort of finality you’d expect from uhhhhh fuckin’ Battlestar Galactica?? It’s the first thing I thought of, sorry.

Figure 1. The boys just came back from getting matching perms at the salon and- hey! Is that a Zappa shirt?? Fuck yeah, never mind, these “bros” are “dope” as the kids say.

CONCLUSIONS

This is good stuff! “Progressive metal” is such an insanely broad term to describe hundreds, if not thousands, of styles, so my frustration with pinpointing exactly what I want out of my clean-vocals prog metal is hard enough, let alone actually finding music that scratches some sort of ethereal itch. Fates Warning does good enough job, although I’ve only heard nothing from the band that was released before Inside Out, and Disconnected is leagues ahead of everything else that I’ve so-far absorbed into my mushy little noggin’. Inside Out is on the poppy side, A Pleasant Shade of Gray is similar to Disconnected only less consistent and more meandering, both FWX and Darkness in a Different Light I found to be enjoyable yet aimless and ultimately unfocused, Theories of Flight was more enjoyable, but more of the same, and Long Day Good Night is gorged with filler. I’m told that the best album to sample from their ’80s period would be Awaken the Guardian, so that will be my next avenue, but Fates Warning is a certainly a prog metal band that aims to melt your face without sacrificing emotions. In a world choked to the gills with tepid, useless prog metal, it’s nice to come across a band whose heart seems to be in the right place.