prog metal guitarist Jim Matheos goes weird - Tuesday the Sky

I have something very different to tell you about. This project is called Tuesday the Sky and it is from long-running progressive heavy metal band Fates Warning (U.S.) head honcho Jim Matheos, who has written tons of music and so many albums. He is known for progressive heavy metal and hard rock. However, Mr. Matheos, ever the curious guitarist, here goes down a path that is not expected of him. I'm no expert, but I think this would be called post-rock or prog post-rock. It is mostly mellow instrumental guitar, but it sounds like the music that you might hear at a yoga studio (I would think) or at the dentist office while you wait or something like meditation music. It is not rock and roll. It's not any form of hard rock. Really, I don't know what this is. This album is being released by Metal Blade Records because Jim Matheos over the decades has made good money for Metal Blade Records, and I'm sure that Mr. Matheos is friends with the bosses at the record label.

If this were a new artist that came up to Metal Blade Records and wanted to be signed by them, there is no way a company known for metal music would release this album. It is Metal Blade Records humoring Jim Matheos and letting him do something strange and very different.

Now, if you are ready for something mellow, very mellow, something light, something soft, then go ahead and explore.

Just be ready. Do not expect metal music at all. This is Jim Matheos doing a little something something, kind of showing us that he listens to post-rock and stuff, and this is his way of getting it out of his system.

Tuesday the Sky

Indoor Enthusiast

Metal Blade Records

24 October 2025

ABOUT THE ALBUM: Indoor Enthusiast, the third record from Tuesday the Sky, the instrumental-driven project from guitarist Jim Matheos, arrives October 24, 2025. With 11 songs of pure Matheos playing and passion, it features Dutch drummer Dennis Leeflang on “The Nearest Exit May be Behind You,” “Bend Toward Light” and “Set Fire to the Stars.” Tuesday the Sky has been described as a “beautifully weird solo project” by Sonic Perspectives, while Dead Rhetoric dubbed it a “kaleidoscope of atmospheric songs.”

Matheos, famed for his work with progressive metal giants Fates Warning, alongside projects such as OSI and his collaboration with John Arch, Arch/Matheos, planted the seeds of Tuesday the Sky around 2016. The impetus came from a Fates Warning bonus track that Matheos felt didn’t fit for the band. He kept writing in that vein, and the result was Tuesday the Sky. The initial offering was 2017's Drift, a record that drew influence from the likes of Brian Eno, Sigur Ros, Boards Of Canada and Explosions In The Sky.

The second Tuesday the Sky album was 2021’s The Blurred Horizon, a mixture of ambient, electronica, post-rock and more. The Blurred Horizon is perhaps best described as a beautiful record, having a natural grace to it. The closing track "Everything Is Free" is a cover of a Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and the only song with vocals, supplied by Tim Bowness.

Indoor Enthusiast is entirely instrumental, produced and mixed by Matheos, and mastered by Jacob Hansen. The guitarist’s TTS work begins differently than writing for his other bands. As Matheos has previously noted, “A lot of it starts with sounds, interesting sound that catches my attention, so I have lots of different effects and amps up in the studio. Often that’ll lead to different chords, progressions, or melodies.” Fates Warning however, generally kicks off with a riff chorus, melody lines. With everything he writes, from Indoor Enthusiast to Fates Warning music, Matheos asks, “’As a listener, does this interest me?’ I usually just go with my gut instinct. If it’s interesting to me, then there’s going to be someone else out there who’s going to find it interesting as well.”

Indoor Enthusiast by Tuesday The Sky