PARALLELS

I shall begin by saying that the musicians here are fantastic, and the compositional skill level is quite profound. Fates Warning come together in a masterful and solid mesh.

The opener Leave The Past Behind goes from heavy progressive rocking, to all out blistering inferno solo slinging. The end half of this is a shock wave of great musical ideas. Alder's vocals are great and powerful. Rhythm section lays down well, and keeps things on an enticing pace.

Life In Still Water rocks even harder, with the blaring beginning riff. It is quite catching, and maintains a fine level of interest. It does begin sounding a bit too much like the previous track, though. Eye To Eye is one of the more popular songs off the album, and features a strong overall melody. Still, it sounds a bit too same as the previous songs. That would probably be my main criticism of this album.

the 11th Hour drops all that, though, in favor of some atmospheric and building progressive mastery. Starting slow and soft, then growing into screeching catastrophic metal. There are multiple facets, and ever changing feel. A definite highlight.

Point Of View returns to the crunching somewhat straight forward fold of before, and has intelligent lyrics. Where it still sounds a bit much like Eye To Eye, it relentlessly smashes forth. We Only Say Goodbye is I'd say one of the weaker songs to come, but that is mainly due to it feeling so much like the rest of the album, without any newly presented ideas. Don't Follow Me is stronger, but still doesn't capture too much interest for me. That main lead guitar line is fantastic, though.

The Road Goes On forever ends this album superbly. An atmospheric solo played over a soft and mysterious dark vibe. Altogether finely crafted, and stellar performance. It is almost in the feel of a power ballad, though. And it apes itself entirely too much on the same standard sound.

In all, the songs range from fine to very good, with more reliance on the former. For this, I give them three solid stars. If only they;d worked harder on the album's overall atmosphere.

Best Song - Point Of View or The 11th Hour.

Worst Song - The Road Goes On Forever, but it is still nice.

*** strong stars.

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