Review of the Album "Disconnected" by Progressive Metal Band Fates Warning

Disconnected is the 2000 studio album by East Coast progressive metal band Fates Warning and it is described as a change of pace. Actually, that change of pace, not necessarily in terms of speed started to show itself on the band’s 1997 album A Pleasant Shade of Gray (Grey) as the band had the full album being one track divided into 12 different parts.

What we hear on this album is atmospheric and electronic sounds combined with Ray Alder’s vocals. He sings in softer tones in this album which is a very marked contrast from the way that he used to sing on albums such as No Exit and Parallels.

Then comes the song called "One." Are we all connected some way as we are one with the world? All of us has a spirit form that inhabits this physical body of ours and this spirit leaves the body after there is a stop in functioning of the body. I get the sense that Fates warning is trying to explore the deeper depths of human nature with this album because they feel that humans have been driven apart from each other because of greed, selfishness, and sin.

"Pieces of Me" has a sort of electronic sound to it as the song is about a person that feels broken in his life. He feels that he has no direction in his life. Every place that he looks he sees broken promises and he is living by thinking about memories from his past.

"Something from Nothing" continues on the same electronic sound as the song is about a person that is reflecting on his or her past. Some thoughts are like wounds that cut really deep and a person that stands in the same place for too long without taking action to change their circumstances will not see anything really change. Things that do not change stay the same. An object that is not in motion is left stationary. A philosophical yet practical approach to the lyrics is what Fates Warning takes in the album Disconnected. Still Remains is the longest song in this 7 song album clocking in at over 16 minutes. The question from some of you may be why did the band write a song that is so long? Back in 1985, Fates Warning wrote a 12 minute song called Epitaph on their second album The Spectre Within and that album also only has 7 songs on it. Anyway, let’s get back to this song Still Remains. Life is full of memories that we experience on this planet whether we write in our diaries or whether we allow experiences to happen naturally. I hear something that is melodic enough that the band Dark Tranquillity would use in their music especially in their great second album called The Gallery.

Overall, Disconnected is still a better album than the band’s first three albums because musically, the song just seem to fit very well and at the end there is a narration that tells us that love can help us overcome all obstacles. The best songs are Pieces of Me, Something from Nothing, and Still Remains though the other songs are good as well.