So this kid was listening to this group over at my neighbors (son was was in his teens) I was like "Holy SHit" Metal is really coming back. Then the singer started singing. Sucks because the rest of the band sounds REALLY good.
Not all hope is lost... There's still August Burns Red thanks to the guitar work of JB Brubaker. Seems like the only band out there that isn't writing every song about girls breaking their hearts back in high school.
L, check the first 40 seconds out and get back to me on what's happening One of my favorite bands that mellowed Dream Theater was influenced heavily by their compositions but Fates actually had hooks to go along with all the math and didn't start putting you to sleep until later albums
The melody of the singer kinda sounds modal to me, like a Gregorian chant without an easily discernible tonal center. But if you listen to the first three pitches.....you hear B to the major third E-flat, then to that thing I mentioned that usually sounds horrible to most humans...this thing: http://www.diabolus.org/explanation/explanation.htm ...they sing an F which is the augmented fourth or diminished fifth above B as the root. That's why it sounds so beautifully unpleasant. Very purposeful musicians if you ask me.
THANK YOU!!! This one has been on my mind for 24 years. I have had people listen to it and they couldn't describe what they didn't like but everyone was confused by not liking it.
It's funny we were just talking about the diabolus in musica and what qualities make things sound pleasant and unpleasant and why.....and you put up an example that illustrates that very point. The melody is odd (and that dude singing it so straight forward with that hall type reverb on it is awesomely creepy) but the movement under the melody make it even creepier if you ask me. IMO.....one or more of them is a trained musician or somebody in the band has really strange ears, cause coming up with that arpeggio progression under that melody isn't something the average musician would even hear...let alone want to do. I listened to the intro like 30 times and actually played through the first couple measures or so on my keyboard to visually see what they're doing....and it's really weird! It's like a vii chord (diminished in scale progression) to a iii (minor in scale progression) with a flat 7 and this is assuming a starting key of A-flat, cause they play stuff not in the key from chord 3 on. It kinda doesn't have a key...if you follow strict rules and just look for notes that belong in the chords. I was lost trying to understand why other than for the sheer ugliness of it. I've listened a few more times this morning....I kinda like it! I played just the beginning for my wife and she said it sounds scarey and like he couldn't hear himself recording......LOL! You should have seen her face as it played......her expressions went from ok I'll listen....to what the heck is this...then to....concerned frowning over someone's agony....to an expression I can only describe as......yuk that music tastes nasty to my ear-mouths.......LOL!!! Brilliantly awful!!!....which is what I think they were going for!
Cool! As much as I love No Exit and wore out the tape back in the day, the one before was magical-- the vocal lines were amazingly bizarre (no devil though! har) http://www.amazon.com/Awaken-Guardian-Fates-Warning/dp/B000001C74 No Exit was their heaviest and a bit unpolished but hinted at what the band was about to become--which was full on well produced prog. I suppose Perfect Symmetry would be the "musician's album". I liked it quite a bit but lost interest in their later stuff, so can't speak for what came after http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Symmetry-Fates-Warning/dp/B000001C78 I played their second album, "Specter Within", to a guitarist friend and he became very excited talking about "math" and wouldn't explain what he meant, "you wouldn't understand" he kept telling me lol. That was back in 87 and the first time I heard anyone say math relating to metal. Dream Theater gets all the credit in this prog-"metal" genre but it's hard for me to listen to hook free music unless it's in the background
