Welcome to another “Album by Album Challenge.” For those that are new here, the “Album by Album Challenge” is where I take a band’s entire discography and listen to every album in order of release from front to back. With my unforgiving and well-aged ear, I call it how I hear it. In some cases, I find that what I once thought was good is actually pretty crappy and sometimes crap manages to age into something pretty kick ass. And in some cases, face melting is still just good ol’ face melting.
This time around I dove head first into the discography of Queensryche. This was hands down one of the scariest challenges to date but it was one that I honestly felt that I needed to do. As a fan of Queensryche for over 20 years, the band seemed to go from the top of it all to being a band that at times seemed to let their fans down or at least left us all scratching our heads wondering what happened. This challenge was a great way to for my own opinions on some of those albums that I just flat out avoided like the plague.
This is a two part post. Part I will cover his first seven albums and Part II will pick up the rest including the bout of Queensryche vs. Queensryche. I’m so curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on this so please share!
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Queensryche – EP
Release Date: September, 1983
The Good: Queen of the Reich, Nightrider, Blinded, The Lady Wore Black
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
It’s been years since I sat down and listened to this EP and I found myself loving it more now than I did when I first heard it back in 1986. In just four songs you can hear this band progress from an almost Paul DiAnno era Iron Maiden clone with “Queen of the Reich” and “Nightrider” to the signature sound that would forge a genre with “The Lady Wore Black.” I’m also surprised at how great it still sounds. It doesn’t sound dated in the least bit and the performance is absolutely stellar. What a way to start a career with four incredibly strong songs that gave us all just a slight taste of what was to come from this amazing band. This really got me pumped for this challenge and I can’t wait to dive into the next one. Here we go!
Queensryche – The Warning
Release Date: September 7, 1984
The Good: The Warning, Deliverance, No Sanctuary, N M 156, Take Hold of the Flame, Child of Fire, Roads to Madness, Prophecy
The Bad:
The Indifferent: En Force, Before the Storm,
It’s amazing how much these guys changed in just one year. The Warning sounds a lot less like Iron Maiden and more like the Queensryche their fans would come to love. The songs on this album are so good and you can tell that they were really working with some different dynamics on songs like “No Sanctuary” and “N M 156”, and “Take Hold of the Flame” (which is still one of the greatest metal songs of all time in my book). Nothing about this album flat out sucks but “En Force” was a bit dull to me and the chorus for “Before the Storm” was so fucking annoying I had to skip through it. It’s a shame though because the song pretty much kicks ass but then gets ruined by the shitty chorus. “Roads to Madness” and “Prophecy” back to back to close this album just sends chills down my spine as two of their most epic songs ever. All in all, this is a solid fucking album that I forgot how much I loved.
Queensryche – Rage for Order
Release Date: July, 1986
The Good: Walk in the Shadows, I Dream in Infrared, The Whisper, Gonna Get Close To You, The Killing Words, Surgical Strike, Neue Regel, Chemical Youth, London, Screaming in Digital, I Will Remember
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
This has to be without a doubt one of the most unexpected follow ups I’ve ever heard a band come out with. Two years after The Warning, you’d think maybe it would be a similar album but just a step or two forward but instead, Queensryche took two steps forward and about 4 steps in a whole other direction. This is such a strange album but its experimental nature just makes it all the more unique and excited to listen to. While I never picked up on it back then, after listening to this album in full I can really hear the Pink Floyd influence on these guys. They really took a huge risk and this is the album that made them a cult band. Every song is a keeper and you can really tell that they put a lot of work into the sequencing of these tracks to create a really great flow. Closing the album with “I Will Remember” is like ending it on an unresolved note but it’s like they wanted to listeners to come down gently from this really tense and at times chaotically awesome metal masterpiece. This album is a classic to say the least.
Queensryche: Operation: Mindcrime
Release Date: May 3, 1988
The Good: Anarchy X, Revolution Calling, Operation Mindcrime, Speak, Breaking the Silence, I Don’t Believe In Love, Waiting for 22, My Empty Room, Eyes of a Stranger
The Bad:
The Indifferent: Spreading the Disease, The Mission, Suite Sister Mary, The Needle Lies,
So I have to say that listening Operation Mindcrime front to back for the first time in a long time I felt a slight sense of disappointment. This album is chock full of great songs but in all honesty as a whole the album just didn’t deliver like I remembered it doing. The album starts out really strong with some amazing songs but the middle part of the album just seems to lose momentum and drag on. “Suite Sister Mary” just seems to drag and did nothing to keep my attention but things pick up with “Breaking the Silence.” The closing of “Waiting for 22”, “My Empty Room”, and “Eyes of a Stranger” is massively epic. I love how starting with “Waiting for 22” it just starts to steadily build up to the “Eyes of a Stranger” which closes the chapter and almost leaves you feeling out of breath. While I still find myself loving so many of these songs, I’m kind of surprised to find that I don’t love this album as a whole like I used to leading me to feel that this isn’t the masterpiece that I or many others think/thought it is/was.
Queensryche: Empire
Release Date: September 10, 1990
The Good: Best I Can, Thin Line, Jet City Woman, Della Brown, Another Rainy Night Without You, Empire, Resistance, Silent Lucidity, Hand on Heart, One and Only, Anybody Listening
The Bad:
The Indifferent:
Ok, here’s the deal. I can tell you right now I’m going to get blasted for this but goddamn do I love this album. It’s amazing to me how well it holds up. No, it’s not the “progressive masterpiece” everyone held Operation Mindcrime to be but it’s a dynamic album with a diverse mix of styles that definitely appealed a much broader audience. Maybe at this point Queensryche was attempting to go commercial but in all honesty, I loved what they did here. They made a different kind of album. They expanded their horizons and they totally took their fans by surprise by making an easily accessible album but keeping it sounding like Queensryche. There isn’t a single bad song on this album but there are good songs, and there are outstanding songs. “Best I Can”, “Thin Line” “Hand on Heart” are all good songs but then you have “Della Brown”, “Resistance” and “Silent Lucidity” which are outstanding. Yeah, I know, “Derp. Silent Lucidity is just a Pink Floyd ripoff.” Whatevs brah. “Silent Lucidity” is a great song and let’s not forget “Anybody Listening?” which still to this day stands in my top 5 Queensryche songs of all time. This is a truly great album. It’s a commercial album but the quality of the songwriting wasn’t compromised a bit in my eyes. They get a bit sappy with some love songs but even those I find to be way above the standards of many of their peers at the time. This is a great album but it also reminds me that this was a progression into what would be Promised Land. All in all this is still a fantastic album and as a whole I enjoy this one way more that Operation: Mindcrime.
Queensryche: Promised Land
Release Date: October 18, 1994
The Good: I Am I, Damaged, Out of Mind, Bridge, Promised Land, Disconnected, Lady Jane, My Global Mind, Someone Else (band version; bonus track), Real World (bonus track)
The Bad:
The Indifferent: One More Time Around
Promised Land. Wow. Ok, I have to say that as of this album this one still remains my favorite Queensryche album. For this one, it’s like they stepped forward from Empire and instead of being a more commercially accessible album, they reached deep and tugged on their Pink Floyd influence and created an album full of depth, dynamics, some well written and thought provoking songs. “I Am I” is such an amazing song to pen the album and “Damaged” is another really stellar song. “Disconnected” reminds me of something that could’ve been on Rage for Order. This album was released right on the cusp of technology taking over the world so a song like “My Global Mind” really captures that point in time. “Promised Land” is one of those songs that sits in my top 5 favorite QR songs as this song is just pure ear candy. There are so many layers of instrumentation in this one and listening to it with headphones on is the way to go. The one thing I have to say I loved was that the re-issue featured the full band version of “Someone Else” and the song “Real World” which was originally on The Last Action Hero soundtrack. The band version of “Someone Else” is far superior to the piano/voice version on the original album and “Real World” (alongside “I Am I” and “Promised Land” is one of the best songs on the album. Promised Land is probably the best sounding of all the QR albums. The production is top notch and they really utilized the studio to the fullest amount and created an album that is an amazing listening experience.
Queensryche – Hear in the Now Frontier
Release Date: March 25, 1997
The Good: Sign of the Times, Some People Fly, Hit the Black, Spool
The Bad: Get A Life,
The Indifferent: Cuckoo’s Nest, The Voice Inside, Saved, You, Hero, Miles Away, All I Want, Anytime
The level of mediocrity from this album is staggering. First off, can was just get it out of the way and talk about how fucking shitty this album sounds? This is just another reminder of why I got so disheartened and started to hate metal music at the time. This was around the time where just about every metal band was cutting their hair, donning flannel, and playing lackluster songs with muddy production in order to ride the then new “grunge wave.” I fucking hated it that of all the bands that were doing this, even Queensryche couldn’t stick to their guns. They caved in and delivered this album. There are some good songs on this album but the songs are just good at best. The indifferent songs didn’t flat out suck but all in all this is an extremely forgettable album with no substance or character to it. This is where I’m starting to get scared about what’s to follow from here. Is this the beginning of the end?
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