October 2021 Feature Release – The Guardians Edition
So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.
This month’s feature release for The Guardians has been nominated by Andi. It's the 1984 debut album "Night on Bröcken" from Connecticut-based heavy metal outfit Fates Warning.
https://metal.academy/releases/2305
What exactly is going on there on the cover? I can't fathom it at all.
It seems pretty obvious to me. The gothic chick is about to commit suicide after catching her man in intimate embrace with the blonde & knocking her unconscious. She brought her midget cronies & animals with her. He's still having a better morning than I am though.
It seems pretty obvious to me. The gothic chick is about to commit suicide after catching her man in intimate embrace with the blonde & knocking her unconscious. She brought her midget cronies & animals with her. He's still having a better morning than I am though.
That seems accurate, but here's how I see it: The goth girl is doing a "king of the world" pose on the edge of the cliff, but everyone suspects her to be a witch and are trying to kill her in different ways. One of the dwarves is about to karate kick her off with the other two cheering him on. A feral cat is about to attack her if she gets too close. And the man is on his way to burn her with the torch. In the process, he is kicking the blonde lady unconscious after sexually assaulting her, leaving the blonde at risk of being feasted upon by another feral cat. And finally, a vulture is watching the whole scene from a tree, waiting for its turn to snack on those two females once they get killed. A strange and morbid concept, but interesting cover art nonetheless. Anyway, thanks Daniel for accepting this feature release submission! I shall do my review soon...
I did my review, here's its summary:
It wasn't until Ray Adler joined the band when the more progressive era of Fates Warning came to full force, but after 5 years of trying to get into listening to Fates Warning, I've finally done so starting with the John Arch era. As early as their debut Night on Brocken, they had a bit of power/speed metal influenced by Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. While not super impressive, their debut has brooding rhythms and Arch's searing vocals that place him between Dickinson and Kotipelto (the latter from Stratovarius). Apparently, all the songs were re-recorded from a couple demos the band made, the first demo containing two-thirds and released under the band name Misfit, yet the lineup stayed during those first few years, consisting of not just John Arch, but also dueling guitarists Jim Matheos and Victor Arduini, bassist Joe DiBiase, and drummer Steve Zimmerman. The tones work well in the album with purely sung melodies despite sounding raw compared to the other two albums of the Arch era. I can understand why this album is shunned by even the remaining active founding member Matheos. But still there are some solid guitars and memorable vocals with rage nostalgia in the atmosphere. There's no chance this would ever be my ultimate favorite Fates Warning album, but it's a fine powerful Guardians feature release choice for you to get your US power metal on....
4/5
Recommended songs: "Buried Alive", "Night on Brocken", "Misfit", "Damnation", "Soldier Boy"
For fans of: 80s Queensryche, Riot, Omen
Here's my old review from the Metal Academy podcast several years ago:
"Night On Bröcken" is a record that’s more significant from a timeline point of view than from an artistic one as it represents the more humble beginnings of one of the more iconic US metal bands of the 80’s. Connecticut five-piece Fates Warning would go on to become one of the most important bands in the development of the progressive metal subgenre & they remain a metal powerhouse still to this day but their debut full-length represents their more humble of beginnings with the Metal Blade Records backed release sporting a sound that showed very little in the way of invention or artistic license.
The crude cover art gives you a strong indication that the album might not be as polished as the rest of the band’s star studded back catalogue & that definitely proves to be the case with Fates Warning simply testing the waters by emulating their NWOBHM heroes. It’s interesting that the album title is referring to a German mountain that’s famous for its association with witches as referenced in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s tragic play “Faust”. The title of Stormwitch’s debut album “Walpurgis Night” from around the same time is actually referring to the night that the witches traditionally met at the top of Bröcken so it seems to have been a popular topic for metal bands of the time.
The production job on “Night On Brocken” isn’t horrible but it is a little inconsistent with some songs sounding a little flatter than others. You can clearly hear all of the instruments but the overall sound comes across as pretty dry which is more in line with what you’d expect from a well put together demo tape. Interestingly, Metal Blade house producer Bill Metoyer was behind the mixing desk along with label head Brian Slagel & it’s pretty clear that they were still finding their way as far as how to package a professional sounding metal release goes but this is not a disaster by any means.
The thing that most makes “Night On Brocken” stand out from the rest of the Fates Warning back catalogue though is the style of music it presents with very little in the way of genuinely progressive material on display here. Instead we get a straight down the line NWOBHM direction with Iron Maiden being the primary influence. So much in fact, that I regard a lot of this album as pure plagiarism. The galloping riffs & harmonized guitar lines all sound oh so familiar & you can often pick the exact songs they’ve been crafted around. The album does have a somewhat more US feel to it though which is probably as much to do with the production as anything else, particularly the guitar sound.
But it’s iconic front man John Arch who is the most noticeably trying to clone the mighty Irons & while there are certainly moments when you struggle to tell that this isn’t Bruce Dickinson himself there are more where he just sounds like an average imitation. There are times when Queensryche’s Geoff Tate springs to mind too actually but even though he’s the clear focal point of the band, it’s an inconsistent performance from Arch here as some of the songs see him sounding quite pitchy or straining to reach the more mid-range notes in his repertoire. He seems much more capable with the higher pitched screams but for all his failings he IS the most memorable feature of Fates Warning’s sound at this early stage. When he gets it right we see Fates Warning’s best moments & I have to say that I find them difficult not to enjoy.
The musicianship on display isn’t of the same sort of standard as that we would hear on Fates Warning’s progressive metal counterparts Queensryche’s debut E.P. a year prior but they’d show a lot of development in that area over the next year or so. The sort of technical wizardry we’ve become used to hearing from the prog metal elite was beyond them at this point but they were certainly a more than serviceable heavy metal band. And for that reason I struggle with the common consensus that “Night On Bröcken” was a failed venture. Yes, it clearly showcases a young band that was still very much finding their sound & was more comfortable to simply test the waters with a safe & generic brand of song-writing but it’s pretty well put together nonetheless & I find myself enjoying around two thirds of the material here. The weaker songs aren’t horrible. They’re just a bit flat sounding with their more generic & basic riffs providing little to get enthusiastic about. The stronger material on the other hand offers enough in the way of soaring vocal lines, chuggy metal riffage & general enthusiasm to keep this old metalhead reasonably engaged even if the album lacks those couple of genuine highlight tracks to make it truly memorable. I’d recommend that fans of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest & Queensryche give the album a chance but it’s doubtful that you’ll find anything too life-changing.
3.5/5
Well this one came and hit me straight out of left field. I am unable to put Night on Brocken into any kind of context within Fates Warning's discography as this is the first album of their's I have listened to, but I derived a huge amount of enjoyment out of it in it's own right and I think if I had heard it upon it's release back in '84 I would have been a massive fan. Sure, it's quite derivative, drawing heavily on Iron Maiden and particularly Judas Priest for influence, but it is an album so chock full of infectious riffs and sheer exuberance that it would be churlish to dismiss it. Sure the production isn't the most accomplished, but I kind of like the effect, particularly on the rhythm section. What with it's triumphant heavy metal and truly bonkers cover art, I have got to admit to being won over by it's charms and would count this as a great example of early eighties US metal.
4/5