Ray Alder
What The Water Wants

The jewel of Arch/Matheos receives a response from Ray Alder with his first solo attempt. The vocalist of Fates Warning answers with an album that follows the duo's work, effectively tracing the band's history and what happened a few years after Ray's arrival in the late '80s, as if this album were a consequence, a sequel, a part 2 of a hypothetical monograph of Fates Warning in which each singer retraces their golden era in the band. In fact, while Arch/Matheos' album revives various stylistic elements of Fates Warning from the '80s in a modern key, Ray's album instead revisits the band's sound from the early '90s, with some more recent elements. "What the Water Wants" reflects the lighter and more melodic period, less metal and less prog, that of "Parallels" and "Inside Out," and it does so in an even softer and smoother way. There's even a doubt whether the album can be defined as metal, but we're also far from the structural variety of prog, with tracks quite bound to a declared song form.

However, we shouldn't expect anything original or particularly memorable; class is not lacking, but self-referentialism abounds. There is too much eagerness to bring back a certain type of sound and few genuinely new and fresh ideas. And the attempt isn't always 100% successful, for example, we have to deal with an attempt a bit too blatant to imitate Jim Matheos' guitar without fully hitting the target, the guitars fail to sound as sharp and clean as desired. Even from Ray's voice, one might expect more; an album that sees your name in the forefront should be a promise to strive to produce something you haven't brought out in the albums made with your band, to deepen your repertoire, yet the vocalist prefers not to go beyond, doing excellently what he does best without daring too much.

All considerations are anyway superfluous and typical of our craft as music critics, when you listen in the end, you forget everything and let yourself be carried away without too many problems by effective tracks with perfectly fitting melodies that anyone can appreciate without a fuss. It's impossible not to appreciate, for example, the guitar peaks and the scream in the chorus of "Lost," the pounding bass with funky rhythm in "Crown of Thorns," the delicate and refined touches of "Some Days," the melancholic tones of "The Road;" all tracks that fans of the melodic Fates Warning of the early '90s can only like. No less are the edgy sounds of "Under Dark Skies" and "The Killing Floor." The pace quickens in "A Beautiful Lie," while the remaining tracks seem more markedly metal and related to the slightly harsher Fates Warning of the latest productions; a contained aggression characterizes "Wait," while the guitars are sharper in "What the Water Wanted," but the heaviest track of all is "Shine."

Overall, a good little album, mannered but effective, a publication perhaps not indispensable but absolutely enjoyable.