Music Review – Queensryche: Frequency Unknown

I can't tell if the "FU" is in reference to the other members of Queensryche that Tate split from, or if it's to us fans that bought this thinking that we were going  to get a great album.

                Do you remember a couple weeks ago when I reviewed the new Sevendust album, and I stated how it just was not on par with the previous albums?  That was the case in spades in 2011 when Queensryche released Dedicated to Chaos.  They were never able to reclaim their sound from classic albums like Empire or Rage for Order, so they have spent much of the post-Empire years in a constant state of experimentation.  Let’s be frank, since Operation Mindcrime II in 2006, Queensryche has been slowly deteriorating from what they once were.  The covers album Take Cover in 2007 (typically a death knell for most bands) was subpar, American Soldier, in 2009 was okay, but not up to the standards Queensryche fans expected, and Dedicated to Chaos in 2011 was a disaster.  I am a big Queensryche fan and wanted to give it a chance out of a loyalty to the band, but even I could only listen to the whole thing once or twice.  Generally I’ll get about halfway through it and turn it off. 

                Given that huge misstep a few years ago, coupled with the fact that the band basically broke up (with singer Geoff Tate splitting from the rest of the band, yet they are both using the Queensryche name) my expectations were stunted to say the least.  I think the main thing to ask yourself before diving into this album is whether you are looking for a Queensryche album, a Geoff Tate album, or just something better than Dedicated to Chaos.  It’s fairly obvious right from the get-go that two of those above statements are true.  Even from the opening number I can tell that this album is far better than the band’s previous effort.  I can also tell that the album is much more akin to a Geoff Tate solo album than a Queensryche album. 

                Okay, so it’s not really a Queensryche album, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to suck, right?  Surprisingly, it’s not too bad.  The first ten songs (the actual new material for the album) have some great guitar work from the handful of guitar players that Tate recruited for the project.  Tate’s vocals on some of the tracks are decent as well.  It lacks the “flavor” of a traditional Queensryche release (and I really can’t describe it better than that, just listen to Empire, or Hear in the Now Frontier and tell me this is even in the same ballpark).  You can tell that the album is a Geoff Tate album though, because the vocals are turned up higher than everything else.  This is no more apparent than on the four re-recorded classic Queensryche tracks. 

                Now, I am all for re-recording music if it will improve the quality.  Case in point: KISS released Sonic Boom in 2009 with an additional disc of re-recorded KISS classics (basically a greatest hits album).  The thing is that the majority of these songs were originally recorded and released in the mid to late 1970s.  These songs could actually stand to be updated with a louder, cleaner sound, and the album was one of my favorite parts of Sonic Boom.

                By way of comparison, the four songs that were re-recorded for this Queensryche album (“Silent Lucidity”, “Jet City Woman” and “Empire” from Empire (1990) and “I Don’t Believe in Love” from Operation Mindcrime (1988)) were fine the way they were.  There was no need to re-record them and there was nothing that could have really been done to make them sound better.  Best case scenario, they would have sounded the same.  Of course, this is 2013 Queensryche, so there’s no such thing as a best case scenario.  The tracks are terrible.  They sound like amateur demo versions of the songs, with the vocals cranked way up and the instruments barely audible.  Tate’s vocals aren’t even up to the previous standard anymore, so attempting to re-create a classic track (or four) by redoing it exactly with just an adjustment of the instrument levels, is a bad decision.  Doing this exposed Tate as not only being not as good as he was in the past, but also as a bit of an egomaniac that thinks that if he re-records classic Queensryche tracks with a higher level of vocals that longtime fans will just accept this as the new standard.

                Well to that, sir, I am calling bullshit.

                The album itself is not bad if you take it for what it is, but it is hard to get past the nearly Kanye West-sezed ego that is on display here.  In fact, I think it may be time to call the band dead as we know it.  Queensryche is not Queensryche without Geoff Tate, but Geoff Tate alone is not Queensryche, and any release claiming to be is straight up lying to you.