The Spectre Within

The Spectre Within is the second album on which FATES WARNING layered more complex development and a fantastical air atop the weight of traditional heavy metal. John Arch’s distinctive high notes and the guitars of Jim Matheos and Frank Aresti carry the songs in hard-to-predict directions. Just a year after the debut, the band’s sense of construction and musicianship have clearly deepened. On “Traveler in Time,” “The Apparition,” “Kyrie Eleison” and “Epitaph,” hard riffs and shadowed melody intersect, and Arch’s expressive vocals thread human emotion through the complex construction. A racing song like “Pirates of the Underground” keeps a tension that never settles for simple charging. As a stage before the later progressive maturity, clearly showing the band’s originality, it is an important record conveying the fullness of early FATES WARNING.