?Classic? of metal: FATES WARNING - A Pleasant Shade Of Gray (1997), early impressions

Just a little standalone ?Classics? Of Metal reaction for you me.  I've been wanting to do this one for awhile,* ever since discovering Awaken The Guardian as a little side trip during my ?Classics? Of Power Metal series.  I don't know that I loved (or love) Guardian.  I'm listening to it again in the background as I type this up, and my impression remains that it's definitely an interesting record full of good stuff that doesn't quite sound like anyone else, and that I don't quite get it.  Well, a cursory summary of info about the act responsible for that record told me that hey, not only did this band teach the world that you can do something more than the obvious with a power metal riff, but that this band kinda invented prog-metal.  Further, apparently they got a new singer and made a bunch more records, evolving into something that sounds nothing at all like Guardian, leading up in some people's opinion to an alleged masterpiece called A Pleasant Shade Of Gray that the FW diehards really really really like.   

As I've mentioned many times before, I like the idea of prog-metal, whereas my appreciation of the actual results varies a little.  I thought maybe I'd dive really deep into the FW catalogue, see where Guardian came from and where it went afterward, and dissect what I liked and didn't like.  I then decided not to do that.  That's really a lot of weight to put on one band.  If their music didn't grab me, would I have the will to churn out post after post about this giant volume of music?  So I came up with a more normal project: just listen to Pleasant Shade and react to/dissect just that one.  Maybe if I love it I'll devote days of my life to Fates Warning, but let's commit to anything insane.  So, here we are!**

Other than a few background listens to the first few records with Ray Alder, I didn't come in with any context to have many specific expectations for Pleasant Shade other than that it would come from the band that made Awaken The Guardian at a significant later stage in their evolution into something no longer power metal aligned.  It still defied what expectations I had.  Fates Warning in my mind were supposed to still be a metal band.  They were something in the same general sphere of what Dream Theater were also doing, but their big thing, keeping them both distinct and heavier than their peers, was that they were the prog band that didn't use keyboards, relying on paired guitars to create textures.  And so of course, A Pleasant Shade Of Gray immediately hit me with... keyboard soundscapes.  Keyboards everywhere, atmospheric and lush, composed by Kevin friggin' Moore (Dream Theater's founding keyboardist, who'd left that band because he was done with prog-metal).  And those keyboards came with an aesthetic somewhere between '80s soft-rock influenced and '90s techno-rock-influenced, with Jim Mattheos as the band's sole guitarist.  The almost dancy synthesized rhythms probably threw me the most.***  I dabbled with making the argument that it's more of a prog-rock or even a prog-pop record than anything that could be called metal.  Did decide that I couldn't really back that up, once I recognized how heavily some parts - "Part III" for example - are so metal coded.  Built on a minor chord with the emphasis on the downbeat that's not only played too relentlessly to be anything other than metal, but one that's not particularly far removed from the sorts of minor chords that might underlie an Arch-era FW song.  Anyway, whatever I thought Pleasant Shade would be, it wasn't this.

The record is a bit of a challenging listen, and a lot to take in, but not necessarily for the reason I expected it to be.  Briefly, I always give myself extra time to sit with something proggy enough before forming final opinions.  But there are two kinds of challenging prog.  There are the long flashy instrumental passages in which technical and compositional skill are on display, either helping a musical idea live up to its potential or coming across as wankery at the expense of songwriting, depending on the song.  That's not Pleasant Shade at all.  Then there's prog that's long not because it's crammed chock full of ideas but because the artist wants their ideas to play out at the right pace.  Songs in this mold might holding a chord, or a mood, for minutes at a time, repeating heavily in the name of emphasis, yet not going back to a chorus when it doesn't fit what they're doing at that particular moment.  There aren't loads of extra notes in Pleasant Shade so much as the same notes, played a bunch of extra times.  Now, combine that with the more expected reason that it's a challenge - a fifty-plus minute song is always going to be a lot to absorb.  Pleasant Shade is, of course, explicitly designated as a single piece of music - they couldn't even be arsed to throw us lowbrow pop fans a bone by giving the sections their own titles - and is full of recurring motifs tying the disparate bits together.  (Not just the repeated lyrics like "so where do we begin?" or "let nothing bleed into nothing," but stuff like the way the piano line from "Part VII" is the direct through-line to "Part VIII.")  So, obviously my thoughts even after three full listens are going to be a little half-baked at this point.  That's expected, given the material.

One may notice that I've gone paragraphs setting up how I processed what I was listening to, without actually saying whether or not I like it.  Hopefully, though, that explains why I, coming in from power metal, am naturally inclined to not be the target audience for this but kinda wishing I were, if that makes sense.  I am pretty much exactly where I expected to be at this preliminary stage - I like the record, and I do not love it.  At its best, it locks in.  Some of those grooves - quite a few of them, in fact - are mesmerizing.  This last listen I thought the album hit its stride in a big way with its middle section.  "Part VI" is one of those hypnotic passages - that bass riff!  So simple!  So haunting! - that doesn't feel its length at all.  "Part VII" has the glorious fusion of a central piano figure to keep it grounded, a legitimately heavy riff to play off it, and a big (recurring from "Part V") hook for a chorus.  So there're definitely times that I'm feeling the record.   At its worst, well, it's slow, and sometimes I want to rock.  On this last listen, after the seemingly endless, turgid "Part IX," I was honestly done.  Can we at least move onto the next slide?

At this point - again, it's early - I'm not really connecting emotionally with the music the way I'd hope.  Maybe some of those grooves will hypnotize me into feeling it more; there's potential there.   And Ray's vocal performance definitely works; I'm liking him way better than I did on my extremely cursory listens to his somewhat shriekier role on No Exit and Perfect Symmetry.  Ray's technical ability to hit a pitch solidly makes his attempts to sound vulnerable come across as matter of fact, rather than hammy or whiny.  In this case, part of my distance is the lyrics, believe it or not.  I say "believe it or not" because while we all claim to care about lyrics,**** especially in metal it really does usually come down to whether I think the shit sounds good; maybe if it sounds good, then I'll be able to care what's being sung.  I imagine most are the same.  Well, although I haven't dissected the lyrics to the extent that I will in post #2, my big early impression is that there aren't many of them.  I actually have a whole bunch partially written about that point, but now I'm thinking that I'll save it until I've spent more time with A Pleasant Shade Of Gray.  The short version, though, is what I'm hearing is a bunch of short lines of mood-setting poetry.  Whereas to me a fifty-plus minute song kinda needs a narrative.  Or an arc.  Or something.    The story, such that is, that I'm getting from this record so far is "narrator has regrets, is melancholy about it, remains so."  I'm just having my doubts that that's enough content to sustain a project of this size.

Other thought(s):

Okay, this has been driving me crazy: what's with the band name?*****  And specifically, why no apostrophe?  If "warning" is being used as a noun, doesn't there need to be an apostrophe?  Shouldn't it be either "Fate's Warning" (if referencing the abstract concept of fate) or "Fates' Warning" (if referencing multiple fates, including but not limited to the Fates from Greek myth)?  The apostrophe-free construction only makes sense if "warning" is being used as a verb.  Okay, but that's such an incomplete thought that I can't quite accept it as a band name.  Who are the Fates warning, and about what, and why?  Give me something to work with here, name!  FWIW, Google seems to think that they just thought the logo looked better without any punctuation, and that that's the whole story.

Favorite track:  "Part VII"

Runner up:  "Part VI"

Least favorite track:  "Part IX"

Preliminary rating:  3.5/5

Next:  More on A Pleasant Shade Of Gray, whenever I get around to it!  [Note: Due entirely to quirks in my schedule, this will be either quite soon or not for quite a long time.  Probably the latter.]

*Seriously been sitting on the idea of doing this for over a year

**Joke considered and rejected for this point in the post:  "So, where do w... yeah, yeah, you know."

***At the moment I'm listening to a fair amount of Conception, who were most active at right around this time in the '90s, and they're actually the band with whom I drew the most mental comparisons

****Hey, Rush are my favorite band, so at least I back it up, right?

****And the apparently somehow independently arising Iron Maiden song title?