Fates Warning guitarist JIM MATHEOS and original vocalist JOHN ARCH team up for new projec

Just received this via fates warning mailing list! Awesome news!
 
Arch / Matheos currently tracking in the studio
 
AGOURA HILLS, Calif. – January 19, 2011 – Jim Matheos (current member of the progressive rock powerhouse Fates Warning and OSI) and John Arch (former vocalist of Fates Warning) are currently working together on a new full-length album that will be released in late spring/early summer via Metal Blade Records. The band, called ARCH / MATHEOS, began tracking the drums on January 12 and will continue to record through mid February with both John Arch and Jim Matheos producing the album.
ARCH / MATHEOS features an all-star lineup including the talents of Joey Vera on bass (Armored Saint, Anthrax, Fates Warning, Seven Witches), Bobby Jarzombek on drums (Halford, Fates Warning, Sebastian Bach, Riot), and Frank Aresti on additional lead guitar (Fates Warning). More details will be released over the coming months so be sure to stay tuned to FatesWarning.com & MetalBlade.com
 
 
Discuss here or on the forum -
http://fateswarning.net/Forum/tabid/269/afv/topic/aff/4/aft/12/Default.aspx
 
~Michael Kizer
http://MichaelKizer.com
 

Awesome! cant wait for this would love to see some shows with that lineup and some classic fates pulled out as well.

Arch/Matheos is the moniker? that actually makes a lot of sense, given Jim co-wrote Relentless on John's EP.
 
Glad to see more info as I noticed the post Joey Vera made on facebook last week was pulled a few days later. It got me worried. I'm frankly, ecstatic anticipating hearing  this, as when I read the bit from Joey Vera last week about learning new John Arch tunes, that album immediately became my most anticipated record for 2011, or for that matter, in a number of years.

Why don't just call it Fates Warning? It's FW with another singer. The original singer!
And everything that Matheos writes sound like FW anyway (not that it is a bad thing, cause FW's sound is his sound)

maybe because Fates Warning has Ray Alder still?
and these are their upcoming tour dates:
 
Feb. 10 - Turock - Essen, Germany
Feb. 11 - Het Bolwerk - Sneek, Holland
Feb. 12 - Bosuil - Weert, Holland
Feb. 13 - De Kelder - Amersfoort, Holland

FATES WARNING 2011 is:

Ray Alder (vocals)
Jim Matheos (guitar)
Frank Aresti (guitar)
Joey Vera (bass)
Bobby Jarzombek (drums)

Cool and stuff.

I'm sure the moniker is for legal reasons.    Matheos wants to keep the Fates Warning legal entity away from this...   Also, you MUST remember that Fates Warning has morphed into a COMPLETELY different animal.  (don't believe me?  Listen to Guardian and Disconnected back to back)   The stuff he's writing with Arch is most likely very "retro" and bears little to no resemblance to what is currently known as "Fates Warning"
 
 
EDIT - Having said that...I could not possibly be more stoked for this release!! 

most anticipated record of the year for me!!
 
i'm stoked!!

That's some very interesting news. I'm really surprised by this lineup and this news.

jammindude


I'm sure the moniker is for legal reasons.    Matheos wants to keep the Fates Warning legal entity away from this...   Also, you MUST remember that Fates Warning has morphed into a COMPLETELY different animal.  (don't believe me?  Listen to Guardian and Disconnected back to back)   The stuff he's writing with Arch is most likely very "retro" and bears little to no resemblance to what is currently known as "Fates Warning"


EDIT - Having said that...I could not possibly be more stoked for this release!! 

I wouldn't disagree with anything you posted there, except that sentence I bolded.
 
Listen to "A Twist of Fate" and more or less every thing Jim's done since APSOG, including AToF and I would not describe it as "retro" or that similar, overall, to Awaken the Guardian/The Spectre Within/Night On Brocken or No Exit even.
 
A Twist of Fate is rather modern sounding to me. Some of it could be driven by the modern production quality, but a lot of the guitar tones and dynamics, really don't resemble that early Arch Fates stuff that much. The vocal lines, yeah, some of it John brought back, but I have always found that EP to be more of a progression and evolution in what Arch might have done had he stayed with the band. 

A dream come true!!!!  This is gonna be soooo freaking good!!!!

Oh...... anticipation rising..... Twist of faith is one of my favorite records even though it only has two tracks.

The Jim Matheos?  The one who turned his back on MP and went along Kevin Moore's side for the OSI project?  That Jim Matheos?  No thanks!  :P 

jimboxxx


The Jim Matheos?  The one who turned his back on MP and went along Kevin Moore's side for the OSI project?  That Jim Matheos?  No thanks!  :P 

What is this - high school?  An ego contest?
 
Looking forward to this, although I don't really get all the hype about Arch.  Everybody talks about him like he's some mystical legend.  Meanwhile he's only been apart of 4 albums over the last 2 decades.  He's good, no doubt, but not great or anything.  
 
 

jimboxxx

The Jim Matheos?  The one who turned his back on MP and went along Kevin Moore's side for the OSI project?  That Jim Matheos?  No thanks!  :P 

SacredTerror

What is this - high school?  An ego contest?

Looking forward to this, although I don't really get all the hype about Arch.  Everybody talks about him like he's some mystical legend.  Meanwhile he's only been apart of 4 albums over the last 2 decades.  He's good, no doubt, but not great or anything. 

 
That was indeed, very funny! Turned his back? Mike even did gigs with FW after that! My guess is that he wasn't so pissed off to accept going on stage with Jim. Personally, although this project seems interesting, I'm always interested in seeing more OSI output from Jim!

bring MP to the project!

This is cool, providing it doesn't delay the fourth OSI album, which I friggin can't wait for.

AWESOME! this is more exciting to me then who DT's new drummer is. This album will kick so much ass.  \m/

LIVESTRONG


bring MP to the project!

I think MP's "Northeast Visit" will have some impact on this project.

Added to my list of anticipation:
DT
3
Morse, Morse, Portnoy
Arch/Matheos
 

Sounds great but I have not heard Arch in years so I don't have a clue what he
sounds like now.

OK, great, but i am also looking forward to the new 'real' FW record and hope it is not this Arch/Matheos instead it.

I'm happy to get both this AND the record with Ray. I don't care about OSI at all, I wanna hear some Fates goodness.

The lineup has already been set. Jarzombek is tracking the drums.
 
And just to set the record straight Mike and OSI parted ways purely over differences in the musical direction. Mike wanted the stuff to stay in the vein of the 1st disc and Jim and Kevin wanted to go more atmosheric and less metal. There were no hard feelings...no one got a divorce or slept with someone elses wife...simple and quite common case of ye ole musical differences.

WDD


The lineup has already been set. Jarzombek is tracking the drums.

And just to set the record straight Mike and OSI parted ways purely over differences in the musical direction. Mike wanted the stuff to stay in the vein of the 1st disc and Jim and Kevin wanted to go more atmosheric and less metal. There were no hard feelings...no one got a divorce or slept with someone elses wife...simple and quite common case of ye ole musical differences.

That's not quite true... the main reason Mike Portnoy gives for leaving OSI these days is that he didn't enjoy working with Kevin Moore: See this (he didn't play on Blood because of "a chemistry factor... working with Kevin Moore is not much fun"), this ("Kevin Moore is stubborn", "I had no problem with the direction of the music") and the OSI section in Lifting Shadows (quoted here; "Kevin’s a very depressing and stubborn personality and there’s no reason in my life or my career that I need to subject myself to that sort of personality."). One thing we can categorically say is that MP did not leave OSI primarily because of musical differences.
 
I know that was OT, but I just had to set you straight!

jimboxxx


The Jim Matheos?  The one who turned his back on MP and went along Kevin Moore's side for the OSI project?  That Jim Matheos?  No thanks!  :P 

Wow... Petty much?

well, Mike didn't have as far as we know, much if any creative input on Free. So maybe he didn't have issue with the material that came out itself, but it's probably safe to say had he been more involved with the writing on Free, the end result would likely have differed.

I don't think he was 100% thrilled with the end product on the S/T.   It was my understanding that he went in really excited about the project...but did not know (nor did he like) that they "sampled" his drum parts and chopped them up.
 
He had said BEFORE Free that he wouldn't do another OSI record...so it came as somewhat of a surprise that he ended up doing it after all.  Probably as a favor to Jim...but that part of it is pure speculation on my part. 
 
At the end of the day, they found someone (Gavin) who is more comfortable doing that type of "sampling" approach to drumming...as he already does some similar things in PT.  (or at least, he has some input and/or pull with SW on how the electronic drum parts should sound when they are being programmed)

Well... and I've posted this elsewhere, so I minus well make my feelings known here (isn't that what these messages are for? Disseminating information, inspiring discussion, airing gripes and thoughts respectfully, virtually beating up grandparents?):

Obviously, I wonder if this Arch/Matheos "Waits Forming" CD will pre-empt the forever post-poned NEXT Fates Warning CD.

1. This just MIGHT quiet most of the Arch-era fan boys for 2 years.
2. At least they have an original name.
3. At least they have a lead guitarist (even Fates Warning doesn't have one of those, for the most part... well, live when Frank is the band, but even so, recent FW (Matheos only) has been sorely lacking in guitar solos, and I am aware that Matheos is no Petrucci, but as a musician and songwriter and lyricist, he's awesome!)
4. At least... well, maybe during this "down" time, ENGINE can get back in gear and race back on to the musical track with a new CD of high-octane modern metal (yes, we know REDEMPTION is due for a CD in 2011, so that's a given.)

So, yeah, this is good news for some, but I'm also betting that Ray is left out in the dark as they were supposed to be writing a FATES CD this year (and last year) so maybe we'll get a new Engine (and Redemption, which is a guarantee.)

Ah well... Here's hoping an actual REAL Fates Warning CD comes out before the apocalypse in 2012! :-)

I'm looking forward to this disk.  I wish they could come up with a better name though. Funny that Arch called his EP "A Twist of Fate".  They should use that as their band name as its just the current FW with Arch on vox. 
 
I also wish FW would release another album.  I guess this and the new Redemption will have to tide me over. 
 
 

bump.
 
Brian Slagel of Metal Blade posted this on twitter over the weekend:
http://twitter.com/brians...atus/66931731168628736
 
Great to see John Arch and Jim Mateos last night. Album is AMAZING!!! They will be doing tons of press as well. Out in Sept. 1:25 PM May 7th via web

YES!!!

Jesus. I'm SO buying that album.

What is it about September?   First Anthrax, now the Matheos/Arch project.   
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy it's coming out....but what's the freakin deal with the delay?  New awesome music is allergic to a summer release???

it happens every year. My theory is what happens often going into and really the 1st 2-3 months of the year, a band/artist gets an idea about how close to being done with the album they plan to make/making and recording. But inevitably, something ends up taking more time than they plan, so they start to consider how much time, money it'll require, and by the Spring (like now), they end up not wanting to rush it and wanting a cushion of time to get everything in order as far as how they will release it, artwork, promotion.
 
Which is so often how many projected Spring release dates end up in late Summer/early Fall.
 
Many groups want and say their record will come in the Spring, but it really easily gets pushed back multiple times. Thus a late Summer/early Fall release.

UnaLaguna

WDD


The lineup has already been set. Jarzombek is tracking the drums.

And just to set the record straight Mike and OSI parted ways purely over differences in the musical direction. Mike wanted the stuff to stay in the vein of the 1st disc and Jim and Kevin wanted to go more atmosheric and less metal. There were no hard feelings...no one got a divorce or slept with someone elses wife...simple and quite common case of ye ole musical differences.

That's not quite true... the main reason Mike Portnoy gives for leaving OSI these days is that he didn't enjoy working with Kevin Moore: See this (he didn't play on Blood because of "a chemistry factor... working with Kevin Moore is not much fun"), this ("Kevin Moore is stubborn", "I had no problem with the direction of the music") and the OSI section in Lifting Shadows (quoted here; "Kevin’s a very depressing and stubborn personality and there’s no reason in my life or my career that I need to subject myself to that sort of personality."). One thing we can categorically say is that MP did not leave OSI primarily because of musical differences.

I know that was OT, but I just had to set you straight!

So a "chemistry factor" and "Kevin is Stubborn" aren't musical differences?
 
Like Prong I beg to Differ :)
 
Sure it sounds like he is saying its more personal differences...but also him saying Kevin is stubborn is intriguing...what on earth could Kevin have been stubborn about? Hmmmm I would have to infer that Kevin is stubborn about what should happen in the music or to the music...after all they were together to collaborate on MUSIC...it is a MUSICAL Project...ergo MUSICAL differences. Personality's are part of it but not the sum of it.  Lets not forget that Mike has very strong personality and los of ideas about how things should go too...and rightly so...hes damn good at it. Get two dudes like that in the same room and the shit won't last for long especially if one of them is unwilling to bend...ie being stubborn.
 
Sorry, but set me straight you did not my friend

jammindude


What is it about September?   First Anthrax, now the Matheos/Arch project.   

Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy it's coming out....but what's the freakin deal with the delay?  New awesome music is allergic to a summer release???

The iPhone 5 is coming in September too...supposedly.

Definitely looking forward to this Arch/Matheos thing as well... It's been quite a while since A Twist of Fate!

Hope this means OSI 4 is finished.