FATES WARNING — Night On Bröcken (review)

FATES WARNING — Night On Bröcken album cover Album · 1984 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"Night on Bröcken" is the debut full-length studio album by US metal act Fates Warning. The album was released in September 1984 by Metal Blade Records.

While Fates Warning is predominently known for their progressive metal sound, the music style on their early albums, and in particular on "Night on Bröcken", is in a more typical eighties heavy metal style. The tracks are vers/chorus structured and the influence from early NWoBHM bands is worn on the sleeve. Queensrÿche is the closest comparison though but the music on "Night on Bröcken" never quite reach the hights of Queensrÿche´s debut album "The Warning (1984)". The music is pretty straight forward heavy metal and there are not many twists. Some harmony lead guitar themes and a couple of well played solos are some of the assets on the album. The high pitched vocals by lead vocalist John Arch are outstanding though, that man is just born with the most powerful pipes ever. He is such a skilled singer. He would improve even more on subsequent albums though. The two tracks that stand out the most is the short acoustic guitar piece "S.E.K." and the instrumental "Shadowfax". The rest are pretty standard heavy metal tracks of a decent quality.

The sound production is pretty typical for eighties heavy metal with a thumb drum sound and distorted rythm guitars that don´t pack too much punch. It´s allright but nothing more.

It´s been a couple of years since the last time I listened to "Night on Bröcken" and to my surprise I´m enjoying the album a bit more these days. It´s still not an album I spin very often or probably will spin very often in the future, but it´s a decent album considering the time of it´s release and a 2.5 - 3 star rating isn´t all wrong.
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J-Man wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Looks like we pretty much agree about this album. Good, but far from the best that Fates Warning has to offer. I'll probably jot up a review soon as well.
Time Signature wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Yeah, Arch's vocal melodies definitely rivaled those of Geoff Tate at the time.

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