20 years have passed since the forming of Fates Warning (progressive metal band that has been eclipsed by Queensrÿche and Dream Theater). Fates Warning's anniversary album is simply called FWX (Fates Warning X), and it's their 10th studio album (which the X proclaims). Judging by the latest albums of each band (Queensrÿche, Dream Theater and Fates Warning), it seems that Fates Warning has been able to compose the most pleasant and fresh album. However, it has its flaws (of which I'll tell you about later on).

Everyone who has listened to Fates Warning knows their style, which is progressive metal. On FWX, they have composed quite an apposite collection of different songs. There are everything from metal to acoustic and atmospheric songs — even industrial synth parts are used every now and then... One of my favourite songs on this album is "River Wide Ocean Deep", which has exotic/ethnic sounding female "moaning"; acoustic, atmospheric intro and groovy metal sections with felicitous drum parts (everything in one song). By the way, the quality of songs is quite even.

This album has its flaws also... Fates Warning has never been famous of good production, and I must warn you about that. The production on this album is inadequate — the sounds get distorted way too frequently (especially on the first song). For example, the first song "Left Here" contained a lot of distorted parts (most of the vocal parts and few other sections got distorted every so often). Fortunately, the distortion occurred seldom on the other tracks (some tracks were even clean of distortion). However, Jim Matheos should have had this album properly mastered. Fortunately, I have no complaints regarding the mix (mixing has been done well).

I believe most of the fans of Fates Warning will like this album (despite the fact it isn't their best to date). I warmly recommend FWX to fans of progressive metal (who aren't too picky about the production).

Release date: 18.10.2004

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- MAGE (16.10.2004)

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LINE-UP:
Alder, Ray: Vocals Matheos, Jim: Guitars, Keys, Programming Vera, Joey: Bass Zonder, Mark: Drums
Producer:	Matheos, Jim & Alder, Ray
Mixing by:	Unavailable
Mastering by:	Unavailable

	TRACKLIST:
	01. Left Here 02. Simple Human 03. River Wide Ocean Deep 04. Another Perfect Day 05. Heal Me 06. Sequence 07. Crawl 08. A Handful of Doubt 09. Stranger (With a Familiar Face) 10. Wish