2013 appears to be the year of the comeback. The most well-known of these is the much-ballyhooed, extremely controversial Black Sabbath reunion, but we’ve also seen a new Satan album, a Convulse EP, and Gorguts are a mere few months away from releasing their comeback album as well. And then there’s this: the new Queensrÿche, their first after the firing of Geoff Tate.
The return of Queensrÿche is not a “comeback” in the traditional sense, as the band never technically split up. However, amidst Geoff Tate turmoil, I feel comfortable placing their new self-titled album, fronted by Todd La Torre, in that category. My experience with Queensrÿche’s newer material is very, very limited (and based on other’s reviews of it, that’s a good thing), and I haven’t heard much of the Geoff Tate-fronted version of the group’s new album Frequency Unknown yet either, but I and the majority of other Queensrÿche fans are pulling for the Todd La Torre version – the “real” Queensrÿche, in many people’s minds – to pull off a return to form. Unfortunately, they don’t quite get there; Queensrÿche is a step in the right direction, and I expect long-time fans of the band will be satisfied with that. But this is far from a return to greatness for a band that has made numerous missteps.
Now, that’s not to say that Queensrÿche is an outright bad album. As I said, I have only heard enough of Frequency Unknown and other recent Queensrÿche albums to know that Geoff Tate can’t sing anymore, but if the consensus opinion on those albums (that they’re awful) is to be taken at face value, then Queensrÿche is many, many steps ahead of those. The album does a pretty damn good job of getting the Empire-era Queensrÿche sound down on a sonic level, if not reaching the same level of quality. Todd La Torre’s vocal performance on the album is certainly admirable, and a definite upgrade over Geoff Tate’s current singing ability.
And there are bright spots on the album; ‘Where Dreams Go to Die’ is the best song on the album and is legitimately awesome. ‘In This Light’ is catchy, if only in a guilty pleasure sort of way. ‘Redemption,’ the first single from the album, was promising when I first heard it, and I still find it to be enjoyable. Unfortunately, the rest of the album just doesn’t reach those heights. The musical ideas are okay, but the delivery feels weak, limp and weary. And if there’s any genre of music that is hindered by a weak, limp, weary delivery, it’s heavy fucking metal.
Those who are hoping for another The Warning or Empire (because let’s face it, another Operation: Mindcrime ain’t gonna happen) might want to hold out for Chris DeGarmo to return – although I’m skeptical that it would make a difference. Outside of La Torre, the band just sounds tired, like a bunch of old dudes who used to play in bands decided they wanted to emulate classic Queensrÿche. I can’t say that the band has no life left, but that’s might just be because of what the band was doing before this.
However, the fact that this album is an upgrade over recent Queensrÿche doesn’t change the fact that it’s only mediocre. I haven’t given up on them completely, but they’ll have to do better than this in the future if they want to reclaim their former glory.
