Awaken the Guardian

Awaken the Guardian is a masterpiece representative of the John Arch period, on which FATES WARNING layered complex song construction and a fantastical air atop traditional heavy-metal strength. Arch’s distinctive high notes and the guitars of Jim Matheos and Frank Aresti always lead the songs in hard-to-predict directions. A fantasy-laden lyrical world and dizzyingly unfolding construction build one culmination of early progressive metal. On “The Sorceress,” “Valley of the Dolls,” “Guardian” and “Fata Morgana,” heavy riffs and delicate development intersect tightly, with dramatic tension and release repeated again and again. Songs like “Prelude to Ruin” and “Exodus” breathe constructive beauty and fantasy too. Arch would leave the band after this record, but his original vocals and complex writing gave great impetus to the progressive-metal bands that followed. Keeping a distinct outline even within the 1986 scene, it is a strongly inquisitive record.