Fates Warning Vocalist Ray Alder Announces New Solo Album

04-08-2023

Album art

(Inside Out) Following the fantastic feedback for the first solo album by Fates Warning vocalist Ray Alder "What The Water Wants" back in 2019, InsideOutMusic are pleased to announce the upcoming worldwide release of the follow-up effort "II" on June 9th, 2023.

Once again, just like for the "What The Water Wants" debut, the new album was written with guitarists Mike Abdow (Fates Warning touring member) and Tony Hernando (Lords Of Black) - who both also performed bass guitar on their own songs -, features drummer Craig Anderson (Ignite, Crescent Shield) and was mixed by Simone Mularoni (Rhapsody, Michael Romeo, DGM). Ray Alder's second album is simply entitled "II", but in musical terms this is a much more revealing, exploratory piece of work than its predecessor.

Ray Alder checked in with the following comment, "When we wrote the first solo album I wanted to try some different musical styles. I didn't want it to be really heavy, but more musical with catchy choruses. I think we did a pretty good job on that first one.

"But with this new album I wanted the music and lyrics to be darker and heavier. I think Mike did a fantastic job with the music. He listened to what I was saying and thinking musically. Tony knows that I like the big choruses and somewhat traditional sound. And of course Craig did an amazing job on the drums as usual. It's an honor to be able to work with them.

This album is more of a reflection of what I heard going forward as a solo artist. Longer songs, deeper lyrics and really pushing myself vocally. I hope that whoever listens to it enjoys it as much as I did while working on it..."

With the album's pre-order starting today, you can now check out the opening track "This Hollow Shell" in a lyric-video created by Cloud Music Typography below: