QUEENSRŸCHE – Dedicated To Chaos

Queensrÿche to me is a mystery. This is a band who has released five albums, The Warning, Rage For Order, Operation: Mindcrime, Empire and Promised Land, which all borders to masterpieces and now, the band is barely a shadow of it former self. When guitarist and main song writer, together with singer Geoff Tate, Chris De Garmo left the band after, Hear In The Now Frontier, an album that mixed high tops with the lowest lows, everything started to go downhill. Q2K from 1999, showed the entrance of guitar player Kelly Gray, a musician whose roots were in the grunge movement and the album also went in that direction. Needless to say, it flopped and rightfully so, because it was crap. With later albums such as Opeation: Mindcrime 2 and American Soldier, Gray now gone, the boys showed that there still were life within the band which put the hopes up for this new CD.

But what a disappointment this is. This is is an album made by a band who are as confused as a blind gay dude in a bathtub full of hot dogs. The songs run in a schizophrenic spread all over the record, mixing styles that it feels almost like an album full of different artists. The guys tries so hard to be different and weird that they sound constipated, just screaming to let stuff out of their bodies. Opener ”Get Started” is just an ordinary rock song, no more, no less and ”Got It Bad” is some funked up thing with a middle east influence in the middle. What’s up with that? Then there is ”Higher”, mixing a riff  nicked from Kiss’ ”Detroit Rock City” with some jazzy and funky stuff. All this goes on and on. They also gives us no less than three bonus tracks here. I mean, why even bother calling them bonus tracks nowadays? ”Broken” sounds like it could be off of Geoff Tate’s self titled solo album from 2002 and ”Hard Times” and ”I Believe” makes you wonder what’s this experimental crap is all about. But everything on here is not entirely bad. ”Wot We Do” is really weird, but has a pretty good melody and ”Retail Therapy” is a good hard rock song and ”Around The World” is a good pop song – but I don’t care. This is a Queensrÿche album and I want to hear Queensrÿche. The only great song here is ”At The Edge” which comes very close to the Queensrÿche sound. Although, it wouldn’t even come close to take a place at one of their earlier albums.

This is a very bad album and should be avoided at all costs. In fact, this is an insult to all the Rÿche fans out there who’s been waiting patiently, album after album, for another great album. But guess what. I believe that this could be the last straw for the band. Will there be any QR-fans left after this spectacle? I, for one have definitely lost my patience with them, especially after their extremely lame performance at Sweden Rock Festival earlier this year. Here’s some free advice for you guys. If you have a brand, then stick to it. I’m not saying you have to go AC/DC or Motörhead on us and sound the same on every record (even though it works for them), but if you feel like experimenting, there is a thing called SOLO ALBUMS!!! Or SIDE PROJECTS! Ever heard of that? If they get one more chance to come through, then they should take it because otherwise their career could be shot down the drain. If it’s not already too late.

Jon Wilmenius (1/10)

Track list:
01. Get Started
02. Hot Spot Junkie
03. Got It Bad
04. Around The World
05. Higher
06. Retail Therapy
07. At The Edge
08. Broken
09. Hard Times
10. Drive
11. I Believe
12. Luvnu
13. Wot We Do
14. I Take You
15. The Lie
16. Big Noize