[Cover photo credit to Jeremy Saffer]

North Sea Echoes is a project by Progressive Metal pioneers, singer Ray Alder and guitarist Jim Matheos, of Fates Warning. Recently, they’ve unveiled a video for “Good Enough.” The track appears on the band‘s latest studio album, How To Cast A Shadow, out now from Metal Blade Records. The video reinforces the remarkably stripped-down and earnest quality of the song, meditating on the state of being lost and whether one can be found, suggesting the saving power of significant relationships.

Alder says of the song:

’Good Enough‘ was one of the first songs written for How To Cast A Shadow. It‘s a simple yet beautiful song, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs that Jim and I had written together. While we never intended for it to be released as a single or video we decided that while we were together for a photo shoot we would also shoot a video for this. I think that we both agreed that this song was just too nice not to be shared with others.

Matheos says of the record:

This record is a bit heavier, with several more songs featuring real drums, played by Dennis Leeflang. It wasn‘t necessarily intentional or planned, just the way things shaped up and how they emerged this time.

The duo‘s shared and separate histories help to forge their new creative opus. Alder has been the vocalist and main co-writer for Prog Metal band Fates Warning for 37 years, recording ten albums between 1988 (No Exit) and 2020 (Long Day Good Night). Rounding out his discography are seven albums with Redemption, two solo records, and the band A-Z, which debuted in 2022.

Guitarist and producer Matheos is a cofounder of Fates Warning, the lineup debuting with 1984‘s Night On Bröcken on Metal Blade. In addition to thirteen albums with Fates Warning, Matheos launched several solo albums, four LPs alongside former Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore under the name OSI, and Kings Of Mercia, which launched in 2022.