There are a few times where I feel a one or two-word review
\nwould say it all. In the case of prog-rock trio Fates Warning and
\ntheir latest disc
\nDisconnected<\/i>, such a review would read like this:<\/p>\n
Yawn.<\/p>\n
Of course, you’re going to get a little more detail than that
\nfrom me. It’s not that Jim Matheos and company have made a bad
\nalbum; it’s just that it’s hardly an album to get excited
\nabout.<\/p>\n
Originally formed as a metal band, Fates Warning found
\nthemselves moving more towards a progressive rock vein early on in
\ntheir career, and have embraced the genre as much as it has
\nembraced them. The band – guitarist Matheos, vocalist Ray Alder and
\ndrummer Mark Zonder – are undoubtedly superb musicians, and I would
\nnot stoop to question their abilities.<\/p>\n
I would, however, question why they seemed like they felt the
\nneed to keep the general tone of
\nDisconnected<\/i> down. Throughout the seven tracks on the album,
\nthere isn’t a single performance by any one member which stands out
\nas being special enough to merit mention. It almost sounds like the
\nband is merely going through the motions, as if they had the
\nprog-rock genre down so well that performing it bored them to
\ntears.<\/p>\n
Fans of progressive music, relax; that’s not meant as a slam
\ntowards the genre. In fact, if I had to pick one song on
\nDisconnected<\/i> that could be called the best, it would be the
\n16-minute epic “Still Remains,” which is the most engrossing of the
\nsongs presented here. This would normally be something to celebrate
\n– but when that means that four- and five-minute songs don’t hold
\nthe same kind of interest, I’d be worried.<\/p>\n
I really wanted to like
\nDisconnected<\/i>, but when I’m getting distracted from shorter
\nsongs like “One,” “Pieces Of Me” and “So,” that usually doesn’t
\nbode well. I can’t tell you the number of times I listened to this
\ndisc – especially the first four tracks, which I kept going over
\ntrying to find what I was missing.<\/p>\n
Instead, it’s something that Fates Warning is missing that is
\nthe key to
\nDisconnected<\/i> – namely, excitement. By no means am I
\nsuggesting that they return to being a metal band; prog-rock does
\nindeed seem to be their niche. But if the band wants the listener
\nto be excited by what they have to offer, the members themselves
\nfirst have to sound like they’re totally into the material. I just
\ndon’t get that vibe here.<\/p>\n
Fates Warning is a band of talented musicians, and I hope that
\nDisconnected<\/i> is merely a small stumble for the band. But
\nthis disc hardly sets itself atop other similar albums in the same
\nmusical vein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6430],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-36783","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fates-warning","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36783"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36783"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}