Queensryche - Queensryche

Progressive Metal
Century Media

2013

1. X2
2. Where Dreams Go To Die
3. Spore
4. In This Light
5. Redemption
6. Vindication
7. Midnight Lullaby
8. A World Without
9. Don't Look Back
10. Fallout
11. Open Road

In the world of music this album is sort of a bizarre concept for a band. Most bands have the opportunity to become relevant again when they regain a classic frontman, not fire his ass. This is kind of like the bizarro version of Bruce Dickinson coming back to Iron Maiden. I'm not sure I've ever seen a situation quite like this band's, but like a lot of metal fans I couldn't help rooting for them. It was a ballsy move kicking Tate to the curb, and the guy is such a huge douche, how could you not cheer them on? Not to mention I heard what Geoff Tate's version of Queensryche had to offer and it was made entirely clear his musical ideas for Queensryche are terrible and nowhere near what the fans want.

After listening to this album I get the impression most of the members of Queensryche knew what the fans wanted. They knew that their fans wanted passionate, heavy music and they knew that what fans didn't want was pretentiousness and cabaret shows. This is an album that absolutely deserves to be self titled because it is Queensryche rediscovering themselves and being reborn.

I'm not sure the band could have picked a better replacement for Tate than Todd La Torre. The guy sounds like a young Tate vocally, but one who loves Queensryche's metal music and has the passion to make it. This is just a complete rebirth and the band sounds young and hungry. This is heavy and this is metal. In losing Tate the band has lost nothing and gained everything. The vocals are a perfect fit for early Queensryche and every bit as good as Tate ever was and the music has improved immensely. Gone are the flavors of alt rock and unnecessary attempts at artsy nonsense. This just sounds more genuine and heavy than the band has been since Empire at minimum. Honestly, I think this is probably the best thing the band has done since Mindcrime. The vocal power here and heaviness is enough to convince even the biggest Tate fan doubter if they're willing to give it half a chance in my opinion. The band just sounds like they love metal again. Maybe they always did, but Tate sure wasn't interested.

Awesome. Just awesome. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not the biggest Queensryche fan ever. They've never been among my favorite bands, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy some of their stuff. I just kinda came into the band after they'd tanked and could hear in retrospect each slow step away from the more traditional metal they started as. I'm a 30 year old guy, born in 1982. I wasn't around/old enough to know the band when they had fire and heaviness to be really excited about it. I never got to experience that. I liked Operation Mindcrime 2 when that came out and the band actively tried to be metal again, but it didn't last. This though is about a band really refinding themselves and most of all it's a passionate metal album. This S/T album is not trying to be progressive first, but simply a heavy metal album with powerful, soaring vocals. Good going guys and welcome to the fold Todd La Torre. Even if by some chance this band doesn't legally win the Queensryche name, they are the band who gets it.

Highlights: Where Dreams Go To Die, Spore, A World Without, Fallout

Rating - 4.0/5

Geoff Tate's Queensryche - Frequency Unknown

Alternative Rock/Metal
Deadline
2013

1. Cold
2. Dare
3. Give It To You
4. Slave
5. in The Hands Of God
6. Running Backwards
7. Life Without You
8. Everything
9. Fallen
10. The Weight Of The World

I'm gonna come right out and say I went into listening to this album with basically no hope for anything good. There's no use in denying it. I absolutely hate Geoff Tate and every time he opens his mouth for an interview I wish I was there to punch him in the face. If there has ever been a frontman who was a cancer to a band than it is this guy. From the classic "I'm really not a metal guy, I like jazz." quotes to the direction he led the band and the way he treated the other members to cabaret shows this guy is a disease. I really try my best to give every album it's fair listen(s) and I did that here, but it would be a lie to say I didn't go into this expecting crap. Perhaps the only reason I listened to Frequency Unknown is because of all the drama and hilarity surrounding the two camps using the Queensryche name. That has been some quality entertainment and I had to hear the end result from Geoff. Note that I will not be basing this review on the bonus tracks that are redos of old material. Frankly, I don't think an album should be weighed on any past glories.

I guess the first thing that struck me as soon as the music started was the terrible sound. The mix on this just sounds muffled and amateur. I know there are plans to remix this and re-release this, which was demanded by fans in hilarious fashion, but for now I'm going off of what I hear and it sounds pretty bad. Then again as I got deeper into the album I really didn't see what good polishing a turd would do anyways.

Musically, this pretty much reminds me of Geoff Tate's solo stuff because that is what it is. This is his vision of the band and most Queensryche fans know what that means... Alternative rock terribleness. On Frequency Unknown any metal influence the other band members kept in the band despite the douche in chief is pretty much gone and replaced by hired gun yes men. While this influence being gone from the rest of Queensryche is certainly a good thing, letting this dog off it's leash completely has lead to this musical horror that is even worse than even I could have expected. This seriously might even be bad in terms of his solo offerings though at that point it's like comparing diarrhea from different spoiled foods. If you can listen to the alternative/funk nonsense in Dare and not vomit than you sir are a stronger man than I. By the time I hit this, the second track, I was questioning why I do things like this to myself. And it only gets worse.

You'd think since Geoff is basically just trying to make money off the Queensryche name at this point this would at least keep a pretense of metal, but then again I'm not sure Geoff has ever really known anything about metal. I also don't think Tate would ever back off his ego enough to realize the direction he was taking Queensryche in was not working with the fans who actually buy/have bought his music. I guess Slave is about what someone like Mr. Leather-Vest-Hipster thinks metal is though. It's sorta heavy I guess in a modern and discordant way, but really it resembles awful grunge more than anything metal. That's basically what this is... someone who's a self professed metal outsider trying to figure out what metal is. And for help the guy has writing input from Jason Slater, a producer and musician involved with such awesome music as Snake River Conspiracy, Earshot, and Slaves On Dope. He did produce some of the Queensryche stuff as well, but that just goes further to show Geoff Tate left the band and took everything terrible associated with later Queensryche with him. Let me not forget to mention that Lukas Rossi, the guy who won the reality tv nonsense of Rockstar Supernova, also contributed to the songwriting. Are you scared yet? You should be.

I feel like I've already spent more time writing about this album than it deserves so I'm not going to indulge in total track by track or any of that. I'll basically just say that it gets no better. Geoff Tate mewls lifelessly over poorly constructed, poorly mixed, mid to low tempo, alt rock garbage for what seems like forever and then you get some bonus tracks to remind you of what Queensryche really is/was. Don't expect any big epic screams, emotional power, or anything of that sort and certainly don't think for a second you're going to get the progressive metal of Queensryche's glory days. This album can only be loosely connected to metal in the way that Geoff once fronted a big name metal band. He has never been the soul of Queensryche though. Really his only use to Queesryche was his voice and that has faded with time. All you're left with here is the terrible influence Geoff had on Queensryche unfiltered.

There really is no reason to waste your time with this barring curiosity Remember though that curiosity killed the cat and killing a cat is exactly what this album sounds like. I had to suffer through this, but maybe you can still be saved. An F U right back at ya Geoff Tate. I know I've probably spent a bunch of this review just ripping into Geoff Tate but he deserves it. He deserves it ever so much.

Highlights: Just no

Rating - 0/5

Queensryche - Dedicated To Chaos

Progressive/Alt Rock
Roadrunner

2011

1. Get Started
2. Hot Spot Junkie
3. Got It Bad
4. Around The World
5. Higher
6. Retail Therapy
7. At The Edge
8. Broken
9. Hard Times
10. Drive
11. I Believe
12. Luvnu
13. Wot We Do
14. I Take You
15. The Lie
16. Big Noize

Queensryche... what can I say? They've had their moments in the past, but I've never been as big on them as some. I mean this band is basically fronted by a douchebag who constantly drones on about how he never liked metal and that's just what the rest of the band wanted to play. It's kind of like the rest of the band are hipster wranglers trying to keep Geoff Tate in check.

Well, on this one Geoff Tate seems to have escaped and now his flag is flying high over the remnants of a metal band. Forget Operation Mindcrime II. If you expect something like that you're going to be more disappointed than someone like me with extremely low expectations is.

To put it simply this is alt rock garbage. I can't even hear anything that reminds me of metal here and it is fucking painful. From Geoff Tate's mewling to the jazzy/funk bass and overtones, this is pure garbage and not even in the tiniest way heavy, interesting, or powerful. To even compare it to such is nonsense. Dedicated To Chaos is Amazing in that "I want to reenact a scene from the movie Event Horizon" kind of way. By the time I was though track 2 I just wanted to stab out my ear drums and forget I'd ever heard of music. The lyrics, the singing, the alt rock... no... I'm fucking out.

This is not metal. This is not good. This is not even tolerable. I can't write anymore and you can't fucking make me. I'm wrapping this with a rant. Forget you ever heard of Queensryche and send this demon spawn into the Phantom Zone or somewhere equally inaccessible. Humanity may have done some screwed up stuff in it's day, but even we don't deserve this. If ever an album deserved a big fat ZERO it is this one. Completely intolerable in every way conceivable. This makes Ozzy's recent works seem like a Mona Lisa quality masterpiece. I considered pulling out a negative number. Thinking of an early heavy metal screamer Queen of the Reich makes me want to weep. Listening to this album was like running a gauntlet. The song titles do NOT lie.

Highlights: Are ya fucking kidding?

Rating - 0/5

Queensryche - American Soldier

Progressive Metal/Rock
Rhino

2009

1. Sliver
2. Unafraid
3. Hundred Mile Stare
4. At 30,000 Ft.
5. A Dead Man's Words
6. The Killer
7. Middle Of Hell
8. If I Were King
9. Man Down!
10. Remember Me
11. Home Again
12. The Voice

Queensryche greatly surprised me with Operation: Mindcrime II. It was pretty remarkable how they could come back after so many years of progressive/ alternative rock lameness and really make something metal again. Certainly, that album did bring a lot of renewed interest back to the band from fans who had long ago left Queensryche for dead.

Lose all such expectations for American Soldier right away. This is nothing at all like the metal on OM2 and the band shows it's true colors again immediately. Queensryche may have once been a metal band, but that ship has sailed. Really, I think the only reason they went back to that well at all is to try to renew interest in the band with what the fans wanted. This album however is probably more of what the band wants.

What American Soldier gives the listener is a lack of heaviness, any good wails Geoff Tate once became popular for, and gag worthy conceptual/political drivel. If you want to hear annoying voice overs coupled with chuggy riffs than Unafraid is the song for you. If it's more annoying shouts and alt rock that you want then Sliver stacks up right next to something like POD - Youth Of A Nation in terms of pure suck. With lyrics like 'I'm gonna tell ya what's up now' and 'this shit is for real' I wanted to bang my head against my desk and pray for sweet unconsciousness to save me. This is only a sample of the horrible music contained within but really it doesn't get any better. The rest of this album just drags on with no metal heaviness. This is simply put not a heavy or metal album and it drags on without a single good moment.

There is nothing good about this. Nothing at all. In trying to come up with a rating for this album I kept trying to logic how low the rating should be and what I came up with is this. There is nothing worthy of even adding a half point to the rating. About as awesomely bad as that Geoff Tate solo album.

Highlights: None

Rating - 0/5

Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime II

Progressive Metal
Rhino

2006

1. Freiheit Ouvertüre
2. Convict (Interlude)
3. I'm American
4. One Foot in Hell
5. Hostage
6. The Hands
7. Speed of Light
8. Signs Say Go
9. Re-Arrange You
10. The Chase
11. A Murderer?
12. Circles
13. If I Could Change It All
14. An Intentional Confrontation
15. A Junkie's Blues
16. Fear City Slide
17. All the Promises

Anyone who's familiar with me knows that I think the first Mindcrime was overrated to the nth degree, but for those who don't, there it is. I've never gotten the hype that surrounded the last album so I wasn't nearly as moved by the name of the album, in either direction, as some. For me, the band's earlier releases are far more metal and interesting, with the debut EP being their best work.

That aside, pretty much all of us realize and acknowledge how Queensryche have 'progressively' moved away from metal and that has left a lot of fans cold. This album bares the title of a time when Queensryche were considered a benchmark for progressive METAL. So how does this one live up you ask?

The album starts off a little rocky in my opinion with I'm American which sounds lyrically, vocally, and in title, like a Rage Against The Machine song. It features fast talking and some rather modern sounding music that doesn't appeal to me at all. From there it gets a little better with the hard rock oriented One Foot In Hell and the next few tracks which are more atmospheric. They wouldn't be wholey out of place on newer Queensryche in style, but The Hands is a rare QR song that I can honestly say is pretty killer. There are some Mindcrime reminders in sound even if it is fairly mellow and atmospheric.

The moment when everything changes is about mid-album with the track Signs Say Go which starts off with a riff that sounds more metal than they have since the first Mindcrime. From there on, but particularly through the song, A Murder?, the band really revisits it's metal roots with some heavy riffing worthy of their early material. This middle peak of the album should please fans who have become disillusioned with the band, at the very least I would say. Also, while the band heavily overstated and promoted Dio's involvement, the song The Chase is a very metal highlight and the duet between Tate and Dio comes off extremely well. This is the only song that features Dio doing his part as Dr. X. After that middle section of heaviness it pretty well settles into a blend of atmosphere and some harder riffs intermixed.

Is this one a complete return to the way they were and will it live up to the first in the eyes of fans? No I wouldn't say so. But this album is a certain improvement and manages to make the band sound more metal than they have in years. The newer Queensryche is still there, but it's blended with the old in a way that will please fans who don't get their hopes up unrealistically high.

Highlights: The Hands, Re-Arrange You, The Chase

Rating - 3.0/5