FATES WARNING frontman Ray Alder is featured in a new interview with Jay Nanda at Examiner.com discussing the band's first album in almost a decade, Darkness In A Different Light. An excerpt is available below:

Q: At what point in time did you scale back completely from the high vocal range that you were known for when you first joined the band on No Exit and how difficult was it to realize that a change in style was necessary?

Alder: "I think it was A Pleasant Shade of Gray when I really came into my own and rearranged what I wanted to do with my voice. In the beginning, the whole thing with the high voice, that's what was going on, to me, in the '80s. I was also a young guy, I was in San Antonio and wanted to sing high, and as I got older, I realized I wanted to sing, not scream. And it was probably A Pleasant Shade of Gray when it came to me. And unfortunately, my voice changed. I grew up. Or whatever you want to call it."

Q: What were you doing musically when the rest of the guys were doing the ARCH/MATHEOS project, and did that create any awkwardness within the band?

Alder: "Well, it's funny because I talked about it before -- the Arch/Matheos thing had a few songs that were supposed to be the new Fates Warning album. The music Jim was giving me, I worked on it, and whatever I gave to Jim, it just didn't seem to gel with him. Both of us agreed it wasn't something I was completely happy with. Then he asked me, 'What if I did something else with it?' And I said, 'That's up to you. Of course, that's fine, if it's not working out with me.' Then he brought up the John thing, and I was like, 'Well . . . okay (chuckles). Whatever you want to do.' I was taken aback. I definitely was taken aback a bit. I never took it personally. But I was just like, 'OK.' But then, you know, at the end, Jim needs to make a living as much as the rest of us. It was fine. It was an amazing album, and I was actually curious to hear John's voice as well after all those years. Once I finished with this album, I sat down and listened to that album and, Holy crap! It's amazing -- and John's voice!"

Click here for

the complete interview.

Darkness In A Different Light tracklisting:

CD1:

'One Thousand'

'Firefly'

'Desire'

'Falling'

'I Am'

'Lighthouse'

'Into The Black'

'Kneel And Obey'

'O Chloroform'

'And Yet It Moves'

CD2:

'Firefly' (Extended)

'Falling Further'

'One' (Live)

'Life In Still Water' (Live)

'I Am':

Darkness In A Different Light is the band’s first album of new material since the release of FWX in 2004 and also marks the first release for the band’s current lineup of Ray Alder (vocals), Jim Matheos and Frank Aresti (guitars), Joey Vera (bass) and Bobby Jarzombek (drums).

The album was produced by Matheos and mixed by long time Fates Warning engineer Phil Magnotti, while mastering was handled by Maor Appelbaum at Maor Appelbaum Mastering, California.

Vocalist Ray Alder checked in with a comment as follows: "Darkness In A Different Light is the result of almost two years of very hard work from everyone in the band. I believe that this line-up is the best that Fates has ever had, and I also think that it comes through in the music on this album. It's been almost nine years since our last studio album and I couldn't be more proud of what we've accomplished here.We are looking very much forward to playing some new songs for our fans who have stuck by us over all these years. We plan on touring as much as possible for Darkness In A Different Light and hopefully we'll hit a few places we've never been..."