“Jim Matheos is not the kind of artist to sit still in one place for long. Best known for his splendid guitar work in amorphous US progressive metal band Fates Warning, he also wields a vast assortment of offshoots and side projects, some closer to his usual style than others. Instrumental solo effort Tuesday the Sky is one of Matheos’ more distant adventures with its ambient post-rock soundscapes and touches of electronica.” Tuesday is a proggy day.
“Fewer combos in metal have spurred music in my wheelhouse as that of Ray Alder and Jim Matheos. Their union for Fates Warning’s 1988 release No Exit burst in the budding progressive metal scene with USPM histrionics and Rush-fueled narrative structure. Of course, that was near forty years ago. At sixty vs twenty, your mind (mostly) thinks differently, your voice cracks differently, your hair grays and may even thin. In the case of Alder and Matheos, while immune to the loss of hair, do fall in line to some extent with the other consequences of time. In the sea of time.
“Jim Matheos just might be the best guitar player nobody ever talks about. He’s all about tone, nuance, and restraint, which goes completely against the prog metal grain. I think of him as prog metal’s version of David Gilmour. I mean, Fates Warning, the man’s primary outlet, once released a progressive metal album with no guitar solos. Who does that? Matheos has been involved in a few projects that are well known and respected in the prog world – yes, Fates Warning, but also his Arch/Matheos albums with John Arch and OSI, his collaboration with Kevin Moore to name a couple. Tuesday the Sky, essentially a Matheos solo project, doesn’t fit in with any of these other projects.” Mindful Matheos.
