Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Queensrÿche
Label: Century Media
Release: 2015
Length: 64:23
Rating: 4/5
Queensryche are back with their second studio album since the band’s shipwreck during the painful split with original singer Geoff Tate. With the predecessor »Queensryche«, their first album without Tate on vocals, Queensryche finally got to breathe again after almost twenty years. Breathe in the sense of real unity. They were finally rid of the dictator who told them which musical direction to stick to. The album »Queensryche« was therefore a complete return to the eighties. Compatible with all the albums of that decade. In other words, a return to the old style. Fans of the band who (myself included) never got the album they wanted and imagined after »Promised Land« (1994) finally got their money’s worth.
If anything bugged me a little about »Queensryche«, it was the realization that the album is extremely short, clocking in at around 35 minutes. It was mostly a cautious record. An album born out of the changes the band was going through. So the band used tried-and-true motifs and phrases that it knew would fire up the fans, who demanded the sound and style Queensryche cultivated in the eighties. And that’s exactly what they got. A very high-quality album.
»Condition Human« continues down the predecessor’s path and runs almost twice as long. The band, completely reborn by Todd La Torre’s arrival as vocalist, even dropped the idea of using old ideas that had been gathering dust in Michael Wilton’s archive drawers up to this day. Over the past two years the band suddenly found so much creative inspiration that it actually put together entirely fresh original material. The new Queensryche album delivers an even more exciting continuation of the story told on its predecessor. It’s noticeably more progressive and varied in ideas, which makes it unmistakably more challenging in terms of musical artistry.
The songs were written as a team. A combination of several different writers who kept honing the material. The album carries a recognizable, truly unique charisma, the kind by which every classic Queensryche album is known. Measured against the others, it should really have come right after »Operation: Mindcrime«. The atmosphere is mostly distinctly dark (Guardian, Toxic Remedy), and of course the modern production puts the cherry on top of the »drama theater«. There are plenty of moments that hark sharply back to the days of »Operation: Mindcrime«, while the songs built in the classic old-school manner of American speed metal pull the new ideas all the way back to the earliest period, the album »Warning«. »Condition Human« is hugely varied in ideas. The songs carry a chorus crescendo that’s usually harmonized further with backing vocals. The band also adds more recorded samples to the new album, even programmed loops, to deepen the atmosphere, and the songs pick up a progressive element at those points (this is where things pull toward »Operation: Mindcrime«; the outstanding Hellfire in many ways recalls Sister Mary Suite in structure, only it’s way angrier). The middle instrumental sections are once again used masterfully for atmospheric upheavals.
The band built the songs under a magnifying glass and polished every detail. In a short time Queensryche made a truly excellent album with no weak spot. La Torre is phenomenal on vocals. The vocal range and power he’s developing are extreme, comparable to John Cyriis (Agent Steel) or Midnight (Crimson Glory). With this album Queensryche didn’t go back into diapers, cautiously copying from tried-and-tested ideas of the past. They got out of their system the album that should have come after »Operation: Mindcrime«. In other words, an album without a shred of the pop elements you can catch a whiff of on »Empire«. »Condition Human« is a freshly inspired album, from head to toe 100% devoted to heavy metal of the classic American school. Given the recognizable, distinctive artistic note the band has developed through its evolution, it also has a progressive touch, which makes it different and special, yet in every way thoroughly Queensryche-esque.
Lineup
Todd La Torre – vocals
Michael Wilton – guitar
Parker Lundgren – guitar
Eddie Jackson – bass guitar, backing vocals
Scott Rockenfield – drums
Production
Chriss »Zeuss« Harris
Tracklist
01. Arrow Of Time
02. Guardian
03. Hellfire
04. Toxic Remedy
05. Selfish Lives
06. Eye9
07. Bulletproof
08. Hourglass
09. Just Us
10. All There Was
11. The Aftermath
12. Condition Hüman
