Fates Warning
Perfect Symmetry

Strange world of DeBaser: infested everywhere with reviews on Dream Theater, it ends up neglecting the discography of the "cousins" Fates Warning, snubbing a fundamental work like "Perfect Symmetry."

Emblematic from the cover, "Perfect Symmetry" is the album that sets the standards for the mature sound of the American band: taking the leap from what was outlined in the previous "No Exit," which marked a sharp progressive turn in the band's style (born with the outlines of an interesting heavy metal tributary to the more classic NWOBHM), Jim Matheos and company package the first of a substantial series of masterpieces that will deservedly launch them among the greats of progressive-metal, a genre still in the process of being defined in those years.

We are indeed in 1989, still in the prehistory of progressive metal, even before a work like "Images and Words" coined a new musical genre.

The "metal" of Fates Warning, in truth, before being progressive, is a refined metal, rich in facets, strong, extremely powerful due to the high technique and exquisite taste of its members.

Giving it an extra edge is undoubtedly the super-intricate drumming of the new entrant Mark Zonder, fresh from the seminal (and much more pounding) Warlord: the deformed drummer is a true wizard behind the kit, and he can embellish with his unmistakable touch the compositions already rich with cues from the formation, which this time reaches the top: Jim Matheos and Frank Aresti's guitars and Joe DiBiase's bass are one, while the virtuosic vocalist Ray Alder, in his second trial with the band, is finally at ease among his companions' intricate instrumental plots, without losing his ability to scratch, while refining his style increasingly based on melancholic and tearful moods.

Fates Warning takes on a gray hue, losing the fantasy approach of the first albums and assembling an introspective and existentialist metal, undoubtedly tributary to the dark visions of fellow Americans Queensryche, who the previous year had changed the face of metal with the epochal "Operation: Mindcrime."

In just 42 minutes of "Perfect Symmetry," Fates Warning does not aspire to erect a monument that could change the fate of humanity but begins to dig silently and with meticulous diligence their dark tunnel into the depths of the human psyche and American society, steeped in rigid geometries: a "perfect symmetry" in which every vital impulse is compressed and debased. The same music of Fates Warning can be defined as a fluid humanity seeking to carve a path, screaming and crying, amidst the sharp edges and gears of a cold machine programmed to repeat the same movement. The beautiful cover, in a captivating black and white, is its most perfect expression.

The tracks move within contained durations, often retaining the song form, never indulging in sterile acrobatic displays. Behind even catchy songs, however, there is a lot of work: intensive work by Fates Warning, who carve out improbable solutions in restricted spaces, operate on multiple levels, inlay scales and irreproducible harmonies in oblique architectures commanded by Zonder's ever-evolving beats. They blend acoustic phrasings, sublime solos, and surgical electricity into a web of sounds and nuances (millions, billions of nuances), a web sometimes brightened by melodies directly extracted from the band's past: consider, in this regard, the maiden-sized solo that opens the opener "Part of the Machine," six minutes of fierce metallic neurosis. "Through Different Eyes," destined to become a classic of the repertoire, offers us a fine chorus, as appreciated are the tonsil-tearing high notes in the chorus of the subsequent "Static Acts," the most aggressive episode of the lot. But it's obviously not through the strength and catchiness of the choruses that the value of this album is built, which presents itself to our ears as a cerebral mantra characterized by a pronounced melodic taste and a technique never sterilely academic: a mechanism of emotional crumpling that ends up thinning the differences between the various tracks, more or less bogged down on the same dynamics, and which therefore require several listens to be understood.

Only "At Fate's Hands" seems willing to indulge in more properly progressive temptations: half evocative ballad (complete with a violin solo), half furious tangle of guitars and keyboards, the track features a certain gentleman named Kevin Moore, at the time almost unknown.

The subsequent works, "Parallels" and "Inside Out," will refine what was sown by this "Perfect Symmetry," but will not know how to equal its ferocity and level of inspiration, preferring to err in redundancy, formalism, and pompous arrangements. The three albums together will compose a sort of ideal trilogy that will close another season of the band: the fundamental Aresti and DiBiase will be lost along the way, while the ever tighter triad of mastermind Matheos and his faithful squires Alder and Zonder will unite their incredible forces to embrace the increasingly studied, minimal, and anguished sound of the masterpiece "A Pleasant Shade of Gray," one of the most significant albums of the progressive metal scene of the nineties.