Mood Swings

Archive for the ‘Year 1996’ Category

Fates Warning - Awaken The Guardian/No Exit

In the Dream Theater newsgroup and mailing list Fates Warning are constantly mentioned and recommended. The result was my purchase this double CD.

Awaken The Guardian

This could be described as progressive metal due to the length of the songs. It certainly couldn’t be described as progressive because of the music. The album could be summed up as Iron Maiden playing longer songs. I didn’t think it was possible, but the singer indulges in more high pitched screaming than Bruce Dickinson.

No Exit

Two years later on. Either they have changed the singer or somebody’s been having lessons. The high pitch vocals are still in evidence, but aren’t quite so annoying. The first five songs are quite short. This leaves room for the 21:25 min epic ‘The Ivory Gate Of Dreams’. This is the song most people want to compare Dream Theater’s ‘A Change Of Season’ to and therefore the main reason I bought the album. The CD sensibly assigns different track numbers to each section of the song. It has all the expected loud and quiet, fast and slow sections. In my opinion it’s not in the same league as ‘A Change Of Season’, but it is the only part of these albums that I listen to now.

My advice to any other Dream Theater fans would to be extremely careful before purchasing any Fates Warning material. AOR/Melodic Rock fans are unlikely to find it to their tastes. However, if you’re more into traditional HM or Thrash then it might just be what you’ve always been looking for.

Rating : 3

Mother’s Finest - Black Radio Won’t Play This Record

This album rocks big time. I would describe this as one of the heaviest albums in my collection. In it’s own way, it gives the Metallica’s of this world a run for their money in the skull crushing department. It is a glorious combination of funk and metal.

The female singer sounds like Tina Turner. The lyrics are hard hitting with songs about safe sex and crack babies. The middle six songs are the best. One song really sums up the album and describes it better than any words that I could write - ‘Headbangin And Booty Shakin’ After filling your head with ‘Attitude’ for most of the album, they bow out on a ballad calling for ‘Peace, Love And Freedom’.

I find this album refreshing to listen to. It certainly blows the cobwebs away. This one won’t sit comfortably in an AOR/Melodic Rock collection. Give it a chance and you might just fall in love with it as much as I did.

Rating : 8

Dream Theater - Images And Words

I’ve wanted to review this album ever since I started ‘Mood Swings’. I’ve deliberately put off doing it, until now. The problem is that I find it difficult to be objective about this album. The reason is that this is probably my No. 1 album of all time. Other prime candidates for the title are Harem Scarem - Mood Swings (what a surprise !) and Giant - Last Of The Runaways.

Dream Theater’s music is usually described as progressive metal, but I think the album gels together influences such as progressive rock, heavy metal, speed/thrash metal, techno metal and AOR.

I grew up listening to traditional heavy metal. Now I would now describe myself as an AOR/Melodic Rock fan. Whilst I like the idea of longer songs and musical pieces, I generally find my attention wandering during traditional progressive rock epics. Of the whole thrash/speed metal scene only Metallica hold any appeal and I find their negative lyrics a turn-off. Techo metal, such as Queensryche, I find cold and dispassionate. Dream Theater are therefore a dream, if you’ll excuse the pun, come true. They combine the best elements from a number of musical genres. If you like comparisons then think of a melting pot consisting of Rush, Metallica and Marillion.

I’ll spare you a track by track description. The music on offers includes riff driven rockers (Pull Me Under & Take The Time), AOR (Surrounded), ballads (Wait For Sleep) and tempo changing epics (Learning To Live). At almost a hour long with only 8 songs, you can guess that we aren’t talking about 3 min pop songs.

The lyrics are thought provoking and intelligent. Some of songs have almost a spiritual quality about them.

This isn’t the sort of album to give up all it’s secrets on the first listen. You can go back to it time and time again. If the album does have one fault, it’s that on some listens it can sound cold and calculated.

I reckon this is about as close to the perfect album that it’s possible to achieve. This album therefore scores a perfect 10 in my rating system and is a reference against which to measure the quality of other albums.

Rating : 10