Customer Reviews

Night on Bröcken

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great straight forward metal album. It rocks all the way from start to finish. I'm a huge Fates Warning fan. They don't have anything that is considered weak at all. Turn it up and bang your head!!!!

3.5 stars, really, but I didn't want to shortchange the boys. This album isn't a work of a band at their peak yet - John Arch still needed some development as a singer, and it is somewhat derivative of Iron Maiden. Yet, the guitar is just so METAL that it doesn't matter (kind of reminds me of the first Iced Earth in that respect). John Arch's singing would improve significantly over the next two albums, and his unusual phrasing and excellent lyric-writing would make him (in my opinion) one of the stand-out singers of metal. Sadly, after 3 albums with Fates Warning he would disappear from the musical world until his fantastic recent solo CD "A Twist of Fate" (with Jim Matheos, the main songwriter/guitarist of Fates Warning).
So, I would recommend the more progressive, accomplished, and original "Spectre Within" and "Awaken the Guardian" to start out, but this is certainly a nice piece of classic 80's underground metal for those who are wondering if there's anything other than Iron Maiden (and some Judas Priest & Scorpions) that put out metal in the 80's that wasn't pop/hair or thrash (although Fates does have a somewhat thrashy side to them at times). I think Mercyful Fate/King Diamond is also good in that direction.

Just like the eponymous debut by Rush- a band whose evolution from hard rock to progressive metal and then to progressive fusion rock largely paralleled Fates Warning's subsequent evolution- Fates' first release is a straightforward metal album evincing little of the adventurous musical brilliance which would subsequently follow. As the group's only conventional work, its chief interest lies less on its own intrinsic merits than when contrasted against its later output to underscore what tremendous progress the band has made over the years. With John Arch's then unabashedly Bruce Dickinson-esque vocals and mythology-tinged lyrics, it was little surprise that Fates Warning was initially perceived in the metal community as an Iron Maiden clone, albeit with a rawer and heavier edge more akin to Maiden's exceptional but unpolished debut. Overall, the songs are competent, aggressive, but unremarkable, with the notable exception of "Damnation" which, with its haunting acoustic intro abruptly exploding into majestic pummeling riffs, stands head and shoulders above the other tracks (the probable reason why it continued to be performed live by the band well after other Arch-era songs had been dropped from the setlist) and anticipates the epic scope and grandeur which would begin to flower with The Spectre Within. As with the first four Fates albums, Night on Brocken greatly benefits from the digital remaster producing a crisper, sharper production, although the harmony guitar breaks and solos still sound a little thin.

Despite my love for classic progressive metal bands like Dream Theater and Queensryche, I never really got into Fates Warning. I recognize their obvious talents, and I have to acknowledge the role they played in the early prog metal scene, but for whatever reason none of the Ray Alder Fates albums really resonated with me the way Images and Words and Operation: Mindcrime did. A friend of mine suggested I give some of the early John Arch Fates albums a try, and that's where it finally clicked with me.

1984's Night on Brocken was the band's debut album, and it bears little resemblance to the progressive metal band Fates Warning would become. Instead it is the prototypical early 80's Metal Blade American power metal album. It's more straightforward metal than the band's later albums, and it's quite obvious that the band worshiped at the altar of Iron Maiden (never a bad idea). There's still an epic quality about these songs that would continue throughout Fates Warning's career, but they are decidedly less progressive in nature. John Arch's high pitched, sometimes jarring vocals are perfect for this kind of power metal.

Night on Brocken isn't a classic in the same way Awaken the Guardian and No Exit are, but it does have its share of memorable songs (Damnation is my favorite) and is an important album in that it marks the arrival of one of metal's most influential bands.

Fans of the band's later, better known (and better respected) progressive offerings probably won't find a lot to love about these early Fates Warning releases, but anyone interested in the early power metal scene and bands like Warlord, Omen, Lizzy Borden, and Armored Saint will definitely want to check out Night on Brocken.

NOTE: Night on Brocken was reissued in 2002 with digitally remastered sound and 4 bonus tracks. I've heard some complaints about the remastering, but to my ears it sounds pretty decent. The bonus tracks, mostly demos and rough live recordings, don't really add much, though it was interesting to hear the band take on Iron Maiden's Flight of Icarus.

You have to give this release 5 stars in my opinion. It's so ahead of it's time that even today this is very fresh sounding. Remastered to perfection, "Night On Broken" is without question one of the most underrated Heavy Metal debut releases of all time.....

Those of you who are into the new age Fates Warning, like the utterly boring "A.P.S.O.G.", may not be all that interested in purchacing this masterpiece....Bluntly speaking, it's quite simply too good for your ears.

This, along with "The Spectre Within" and "Awaken The Guardian" are the best of the Fates Warning recording collection. Nothing they released after these gems were comparable in my opinion....

"No Exit" was a very simliar effort as far as musicianship is concerned, but the vocals of R. Adler left something to be desired compared to J. Arch. Arch found a different vocal area, more Heavy Metal so to speak. He was the Metal voice behind Fates, and I'll never know why they decided to replace him.....

This is for all of the old school Fates fans. It's also for those of us who long for the heavy, quickly paced, intelligent mystic that the first three Fates releases captured so seemingly easily.....

It's a timeless classic in my humble opinion, and should be recognized as one of the most impressive Heavy Metal debut releases of all time....

FATES RULES!!!!

Fans of Fates Warning don't need these reviews. For those who are new to the band, there are essentially two groups of fans: those who liked the original singer, John Arch, and those who prefer Ray Alder. I fall into the latter category and quite honestly find the often quasi-religious devotion to Arch to border on the bizarre. Arch fans usually point to his voice and lyrics, but his lyrics tend to fall into the "monsters and dragons" category of Ronnie James Dio, and his voice is serviceable. His phrasing is somewhat unique. I can see where some would like it, but I find it to be a bit scattered -- especially when he sings over odd-time musical arrangements. The other review reflects the pro-Arch point of view.

Of course, this isn't to say that I don't like some of the band's work with Arch. "The Spectre Within" and "Awaken the Guardian" both had their moments and would probably be better places to start for the uninitiated. In my opinion, "Night on Brocken" is little more than a poor attempt to mimic Iron Maiden. The band simply hadn't developed anything resembling the progressive chops and focus that it became known for through albums like "No Exit," "Perfect Symmetry" and "Parallels" (i.e., after Frank Aresti and Mark Zonder joined the band). "Damnation" is the only track on this album worth listening to in my opinion.