Darkness In A Different Light arrives nine years after Fates Warning’s last album and yet the buzz surrounding their return is as deafening as it ever was. Having defined prog metal in the mid-80s, this band have little to prove and their ability to evolve is beyond question, but even by those standards this is a remarkable comeback.
Driven along by the peerless rhythmic prowess of bassist Joey Vera and drummer Bobby Jarzombek (Riot/Watchtower), these flawless exercises in intricacy and precision exhibit a soulfulness and emotional believability and belies the technical wizardry.
Singer Ray Alder is one of prog metal’s finest and age seems to have imbued his voice with authority, resulting in powerful but elegantly executed songs like grandiloquent opener One Thousand Fires and the spinetingling Lighthouse. They leave the best till last; 14 minutes of exploratory splendour,_ And Yet It Moves_ provides ample evidence that these revered veterans are on sparkling form.
