Time Will Tell

Hey there, Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew is locked into another deep cut from the hard rock and metal vault, and right now the turntable is spinning "Time Will Tell" by Fifth Angel off their second album of the same name. This Seattle crew came roaring out of the Pacific Northwest metal scene in the mid-eighties with a polished power-metal sound that mixed soaring vocals, dual-guitar attack, and those big anthemic choruses that still hit hard. The title track is a mid-tempo rocker built around the idea of pushing through when everything feels uncertain, with lines about standing up for yourself and only the strong making it through. It is the kind of song that feels built for late-night drives or cranking it up while the records keep turning at THE ZOO.

The album arrived in August of 1989 on Epic, produced by Terry Brown, the same guy who had already shaped a bunch of Rush records. Band members later described working with him as a real pleasure. Guitarist Kendall Bechtel called Brown a warm, personable presence who became a kind of father figure in the studio, so the guys started referring to him as Father Brown. Bassist John Macko remembered him always smiling, often with a Heineken in hand, and constantly cracking jokes. Sessions took place at places like Mediasound in New York City and Carriage House up in Connecticut, the kind of big-budget major-label setup that was still common then. One old social post from the band even shared a photo from outside the New York studio during those 1988 sessions, looking back on the days when they were cutting the tracks that would become the album.

The video for the song itself got decent MTV rotation, especially on Headbanger’s Ball. Drummer Ken Mary has talked in interviews about how the clip kept turning up on the channel back in the day, and how fans still dig seeing the band actually playing rather than just lyric videos. The songwriting credit on the title track goes to Ed Archer, Kendall Bechtel, and vocalist Ted Pilot, fitting the lineup changes that hit the band around that time. Original lead guitarist James Byrd had already moved on, and Bechtel stepped in as the new lead player. Mary himself was on the way out by the time the video was filmed; the drummer who appears in the clip is Richard Stuverud, who handled the parts cleanly but was also quietly shopping a demo for another project called War Babies to the label folks. The whole experience of making the record mixed excitement with the usual business pressures.

Even with the polish and the Epic push, the album landed at a rough moment. Grunge was starting to explode out of the same Seattle scene that had helped birth Fifth Angel, and the label landscape was shifting fast. The band never got out on a full supporting tour for either of their early records, something members have discussed in later interviews as a real missed chance. Personality issues, lineup flux, and the changing radio climate all played a part. "Midnight Love" from the same album ended up as the theme for Howard Stern’s radio show for years, which gave the record some unexpected exposure, but the title track itself stayed more of an underground favorite among the metal faithful. Fans and the band alike have noted how the lyrics still feel current decades later, themes of fighting through change and trusting your own path that never really aged out. In more recent interviews, the guys even joke that when people ask about future plans they just say “time will tell,” nodding right back to the classic album title.

The roots of the band go back to the early eighties in the Bellevue suburbs outside Seattle. High-school friends Ted Pilot on vocals and Ed Archer on guitar had already been writing together, first in a lighter project called Glass and later in a cover band called Ridge that ran through Priest, Zeppelin, Rush, and AC/DC tunes. They had a backlog of heavier ideas that did not fit those other groups. Lead guitarist James Byrd, who had been working out of Los Angeles, heard Pilot sing and came back to Seattle to team up. Drummer Ken Mary rounded out the early core, and the focus stayed on writing and recording rather than endless club gigs, much like what Queensryche was doing in the same area. A four-song demo cut with Terry Date at Steve Lawson Productions landed them a deal with Shrapnel Records, and the self-titled debut arrived in 1986. Epic later picked it up, signed the band to a multi-album deal, and the stage was set for the follow-up.

By the time they went in for "Time Will Tell," the lineup had settled with Bechtel on lead guitar, Macko on bass, Archer still handling rhythm and keys, Pilot out front, and Mary behind the kit. The decision to aim for a slightly more professional, less underground sound was deliberate on the band’s part; Brown’s production polished it without rewriting the songs they had already written. After the record came out and the scene shifted, the group went quiet for nearly three decades before reuniting for festivals and eventually new albums. Members have said they felt real pressure the second time around because those first two records had become cult classics, and they wanted anything new to still sound like Fifth Angel. The early days of high-school friendships, cover-band hustle, and that independent recording mindset still define how the story began.

If you want to dig deeper into the band’s ongoing story, their official site at fifthangelofficial.com covers the history from those Seattle beginnings through the later records. You can also find them on Facebook at facebook.com/fifthangelofficial, on Instagram at instagram.com/fifthangelofficial, and on X at x.com/FifthAngelMusic. The Zoo Crew will keep spinning the deep cuts and the classic rock that still connects with the Zoo Freaks, so stay locked in and let the records do the talking.