Fates Warning has been in a different place for a long time now. Parallels was an amazing album, followed very closely by Inside Out. A Pleasant Shade of Gray saw the band begin to focus more on creating moods than songs and Disconnected brought them to a sort of middle ground. Now X, the band’s 10th studio recording, shows Fates Warning once again recording an album full of actual songs. They still tend to be slow, moodier songs than the explosive energetic ones I would like to hear them play, but they are good songs none-the-less. I don’t expect that they will ever return to the Parallels sound, but I think everyone will still be able to hear what they liked about this band in X. --Scott