Fates Warning

The world of music has never been short of paradoxes. Fates Warning, considered among the founding fathers of so-called progressive metal in the '90s, as well as among the most positive and consistent contributors over the course of their long career, are certainly one of them. Yes, because it's frankly bizarre that a band with such a history, who debuted way back in 1984 with "Night On Bröcken", only made it to Italy for the fifth time in their career this year.

In fact, to trace back the last appearance of the Connecticut band in our country, you have to go back to 2007, on the occasion of the Evolution Festival. But if six years isn't exactly an eternity, it's genuinely striking to think that many of the fans who gathered on the evening of October 13 at the Colony Club in Brescia had been waiting for this day since the distant show in Biella in 1998.

Certainly the long studio silence, only recently broken with the excellent "Darkness In A Different Light" nine years after its predecessor "FWX", played a decisive role in this drought, but the numerous dates in recent years on German soil, not to mention the Balkan area and Greece, can't help but give a clue as to how Italy doesn't exactly rank among the five's favorite live destinations (alongside France, England and Spain, to be fair). At the end of the concert, the ever-obliging Joey Vera will be sure to talk to us about this, among other things.

As soon as we walk into the Colony Club, a venue that recently relocated to the outskirts of Brescia, we notice an unusual venue: a rather low stage, set against the backdrop of a large hall dotted with little sofas, with a ceiling no more than three meters high making the whole thing a bit claustrophobic. The Colony's capacity is certainly not huge – at a glance, it suggests a maximum of 500 or 600 people – and it would be reasonable to think that a sold-out crowd might be within reach for the much-anticipated guests.

Unfortunately, though, expectations are badly let down, and the organizers will tell us a modest score of 230 people in attendance, a number that sadly dashes any hypothetical ambition of once again becoming a top-priority target for the American quintet. One sincerely wished greater glory for a club brave enough to put on a musical lineup of this caliber, one that was, incidentally, superbly organized.

Opening the evening right on time are Reggio Emilia's own Master Experience, who serve up a decent prog-rock/metal sound, punctuated by a few too many excesses from their eccentric frontman. Next up are Norway's Divided Multitude, who boast a number of admirers within the scene (Shadow Gallery among them, as they confessed at their recent show in Ancona): the technical execution is flawless and the impact in the first few minutes is devastating, though the tension gradually fades as the minutes go by, not helped by stylistic choices that tend to become repetitive and at times even bland.

But, as it should be, all attention is on the headliners, who make their entrance shaking up the night with "One Thousand Fires", one of the best tracks off the new album, which lives up live to the promises made in the studio. The setlist, predictably, focuses on the band's work of the last 25 years, leaving aside their heavy metal beginnings in the '80s, by now a distant memory for the chameleon-like Americans.

The songs alternate between fragments of the masterpiece concept album "A Pleasant Shade Of Gray" and the more far-flung, vaguely hair-metal digressions of "Through Different Eyes" and "Point of View", plus the pair "Perfect Symmetry" and "Parallels".

The crowd's response is remarkable throughout, with the sole exception of "Another Perfect Day", a less-than-memorable track that briefly dampens the enthusiasm and doesn't do justice to the much-maligned "FWX" from 2004, a dignified album with the misfortune of having to follow in the footsteps of the masters' triumph.

The execution of the show lives up to the band's name: Bobby Jazormbek on drums brings new life to the band, largely filling the void left by the departure of Mark Zonder, a true phenomenon at conveying his big personality without ever becoming overbearing. The contribution of the Polish-born drummer is markedly different from his predecessor's, leaning more toward the band's metal side, though not without moments of class, and he underpins Joey Vera's exceptional groove with even greater energy – a man who has always gotten along just fine with heavy metal.

Aresti's absence wasn't too much of a penalty, since the young man who goes by the name of Michael Abdow impresses, albeit with discretion, in the ease with which he shoulders the solo section, leaving boss Jim Matheos to his signature dirty, gritty riffing, a true trademark of the band.

We save Ray Alder for last, as one does with champions: the Texan (of probable Colombian descent, as his real surname Valderrama would suggest) may no longer have the range of "No Exit", but he has grown impressively over the years, drawing the crowd's attention like a magnet. The already narrow gap between the stage and the barrier disappears as he stretches his long arms out toward the crowd, as if wanting to claim it as his own and thank it for still being there, after all these years, offering him its warm embrace.

Between songs from the new "Darkness In A Different Light", the peak is reached with a truly striking "Eleventh Hour", with the whole crowd singing along to the chorus, while the tracks taken from "Disconnected" (the exhilarating "One" and "Pieces Of Me") are the ones that deliver the biggest jolts of energy. The only blemish on the performance comes, of all things, during one of their best songs, also taken from "Disconnected": "Still Remains" kicks off inconceivably stripped of its evocative intro, and while the rest of the performance is precise and on point, it feels somehow incomplete, perhaps due to the absence of a real keyboardist to enrich the sound with those almost industrial atmospheres that pervaded the suffocating original album.

Despite this, it was a top-notch show followed by a "meet & greet" in which the five showed all their generosity and patience, in the hope that this lovely evening of music is only a "see you again", hopefully soon.

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