Queensryche Week on Maidenfans (July 6-12, 2009)

SinisterMinisterX

SinisterMinisterX

Illuminatus
Staff member
This week, all Maidenfans members are invited to listen to some Queensryche and rant about it here.

Next week: Megadeth
Nominations are open for Artist of the Week following Megadeth
Remember:
1. Please only nominate well-known bands with at least 5 studio albums
2. Any genre of rock (metal is great, but not required)

Alright, go!
 
nominations: Apocalyptica, Megadeth, Rhapsody (Just the Legendary Tales), Therion, In Flames, Opeth... that should be good for now.

This is a short week for me since I only own Operation: Mindcrime and Empire...
 
Queensrÿche made one of the best classic hardrock songs ever:

Queen of the Reich. Awesome moment when DeGarmo starts playing that riff (@ 0:29.)

That whole EP ruled and I also dig The Warning which contains some nice guitar harmonies (En Force!). I also like some of their more mellow (and catchy) tunes of Rage for Order and of course Operation: Mindcrime has many highlights, with one of my favourite Ryche songs: Eyes of a Stranger.

I never cared for their later work. Perhaps I missed something (I don't think I have heard all their nineties stuff).
 
Ok, this is my opinion, but when DeGarmo left, after Promise Land, Queensryche seemed to go downhill.  I have tried to like Mindcrime II.  It is good, probably the best since he left, but not as good as Mindcrime.  More later on the individual albums, but try Promise Land, you may like that one.

Edit: Sorry, DeGarmo left after Hear In The Now Frontier--though, that one didn't appeal to me so much.
 
I haven't liked anything much since Mindcrime - not even Empire. I can't pin down why... for some reason their music just stopped being exciting to me.

I didn't like Mindcrime II either, but maybe I didn't give it a fair try. I got it via p2p, and listened to the files as I got them - not all together and not in the right order. So maybe I should try listening to the album the right way.
 
I like Empire a lot. Jet City Woman is one heck of a song, and the entire album its very own feel that, at least in my opinion, is perfect for almost every mood. The only track I can't stand is the cheese-fest that is Silent Lucidity.
Of course, I could never say it is better than Operation: Mindcrime, as only very few albums are, but it still is a great record in its own right.
 
I looked through all of my music, but seem to not have the original Queensryche EP.  I have a compilation that was released late that includes all 4 of the original songs.  What a release that was, Queen of the Reich and Lady Wore Black were two awesome tunes to be on a 'debut album'. 

As for the first full length album, The Warning is absolutely fab.  I actually started on Queensrych with Mindcrime and had to go back to learn the first 3 albums.  Most of the songs on The Warning were great 'prog metal' songs...the only thing I thought about it was the closing song, Roads to Madness.  I was listening just the other day, thinking what a great album from start to fininsh, wanting more when the final track spun up...until about the 7 min mark, then I was thinking 'this song needed to be shorter, cause now we are just playing to make an epic song'.  Even with that, great album over all. 
 
And do you know the 5th studio track which can often be found on re-releases?
I am talking about Prophecy.

By the way, I guess this could be a very cool item for you (and others) to possess:

331px-QueensrycheLiveInTokyo.jpg


1."Nightrider" (DeGarmo, Wilton) – 4:32
2."Prophecy" (DeGarmo) – 3:59
3."Deliverance" (Wilton) – 3:40
4."Child of Fire" (Wilton, Tate) – 4:36
5."En Force" (DeGarmo) – 5:47
6."Blinded" (DeGarmo, Wilton) – 3:26
7."The Lady Wore Black" (DeGarmo, Tate) – 7:01
8."Warning" (Wilton, Tate) – 4:56
9."Take Hold of the Flame" (Tate, DeGarmo) – 5:12
10."Queen of the Reich" (DeGarmo) – 5:21

Great gig, I have seen the copy of a collegue.

Live in Tokyo is a music video by progressive metal band Queensrÿche.

It's recorded live at Nihon Seinen-kam, Tokyo, Japan on August 5, 1984. It was the second night of the band's tour supporting the album The Warning. Although the VHS is now out of print and was never released on DVD, the audio from the concert has been added to the 2003 Remastered CD of their debute self titled EP.
 
I heard the live Queen of the Reich from that Live in Tokyo the other day. Quite excellent.

And I did find one post-Mindcrime song I like ... "Last Time In Paris", from the soundtrack to the Ford Fairlane movie.


An odd little fellow from my workplace introduced me to that song...
A guy who was once a devoted metalhead, but then became a born-again Xian nut, threw out all his metal albums, and listens to nothing but Xian preachers on the radio.
So he drives up to my warehouse in his truck every day - the speakers blast out these Xian sermons while we discuss Queensryche, UFO and Megadeth.
It's always surreal.
 
So far we've got:
Opeth (Onhell)
Dio (LooseCannon)
Slayer (Perun)

To recap:
Next week is Megadeth.
The week after that is a special selection by SMX, which might tie into a historical anniversary that week.
The poll will run during that week to see who goes next.
(Actually, we'll do all these bands, the poll only determines the order.)
 
That'd be a second and third to the nomination. 

Anyway:  @Foro, yeah, I'm familiar with that song as well... I think I read somewhere that they also included that as an extra (total of 3 extras) on The Warning re-release (which, now that I think of it, I may hafta get).  The video looks cool, I may have to look for that one as well.  I recall how badly I wanted Operation: Livecrime, thinking how cool it was to get the cd & vhs box set... I need it on dvd. 
 
I'd nominate Rush, Iced Earth &/or Blind Guardian. 

As for Queensryche, I've heard Mindcrime like everybody else, but that's about it.  Didn't blow me away, and apart from the fact that it's a concept album/rock opera, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.  A step up from the hair metal bands of the same era, to be sure, but a far cry from the best work that Maiden, Priest or even Guns N Roses put out.  I think part of the turn-off for me is that the first full song on the album, Revolution Calling, is affirmatively awful.  (I consider the first two tracks as introductory, though Anarchy-X sounds cool.) The album gets much, much better as it goes along, but if the idea is to listen to the whole concept album from start to finish, that's not a great way to begin.

Other than Mindcrime and the two singles from Empire, I don't think I'm familiar with anything else they have done. 
 
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