Label: Century Media
Release date: 01.03.2019
Production: Chris “Zeuss” Harris
Album length: 43.44
Genre: Heavy Metal / Progressive Metal
In the latest stretch of their career, the era without Geoff Tate, Queensryche have credibly held their ground with two excellent new studio albums. First came 2013’s “Queensryche,” and in 2015 its successor “Human Condition” joined it. On both, they flirted with their roots again and brought back, in sound and style, the creative energy of their eighties heyday. That’s the period when they put out the albums that cemented them for good in the metal world as one of its most recognizable bands, one that came onto the scene with a visionary, even somewhat pioneering and innovative streak. None of this nostalgic joy would have happened, though, without the arrival of the outstanding vocalist Todd La Torre.
“The Verdict” is a different album. It’s darker than both of its predecessors and no longer necessarily “back to the roots” and “old school” Queensryche, the way those two retro-sounding records were. Interestingly, “The Verdict” is at times pretty stripped-down in its songwriting, and in the lead guitar phrases it even sounds lower and “raspy and pouty,” which means there’s a “grunge” accent packed deep under the phrases (Bent, Propaganda Fashion, the closing Portrait), something Queensryche, based in Seattle, are kind of blood brothers with whether they like it or not. It’s something we’ve already tasted and experienced with Queensryche, and something that belongs to their nineties period. For fans of the band, that can once again be a double-edged sword. We mustn’t do the album an injustice, because it’s good. Its starting points are excellent. Idea-wise, that is. That’s why it could have been even better. Now and then Queensryche approach things even more simply than we’d have dared to expect. But there’s something there. All the tracks follow a high level of musicality. Even in those parts where the downtuned strings dominate and the phrases “boom freely lower” or “rasp,” and where they conjure up gloom more heavily, Queensryche deliver an effective mood swing in the chorus with a strong element of musical catchiness, which is present in the songs Bent and, before it, Dark Reverie.
The track Launder the Conscience brings a bit more compositional experimentation. It’s as if it carried over some of the “Rage For Order” (1986) sentiment, that is, the energy of the “happy” eighties, and in 2019 completely reworked it production-wise. A special atmospheric break follows in the extended instrumental section, where the keyboard backdrop adds a special atmospheric springboard to the song and where a veil of light shines through its dark character. Extremely interesting in this respect, just before that track, is also Inner Unrest. These are two moments that give the album as a whole its special character. The most pleasing and old-school sounding tracks, though, are Man the Machine and especially the one after it, Light-Years, with an incredibly stamped-with-identity and pompous chorus, which will become the album favorite of Queensryche fans.
This is completely a Queensryche record from head to toe, the kind only Queensryche can put out. Even if this departure from the sound of the previous two albums comes as quite a surprise, only Queensryche could put together an album like “The Verdict”. If nothing else does it, the (less attentive) listener will be tipped off by the distinctive three-part harmonies that “brand” the album and that sound old-school and typically Queensryche. They whisk you straight back to the 1982-1990 era.
La Torre is an “animal,” a vocal “beast.” A few times he stuns with his vocal height. Because he carries all the power he develops in the mid-range up into the extreme heights too. He belongs to the old school of Ronnie James Dio, and it’s truly incredible how with sacred simplicity he evokes the “Tate-esque” across the whole album. But he’s by no means a Tate clone, though he knows how to pleasantly “tease” now and then, since with such a vocal character he convincingly revives the nostalgia of the band’s golden days. Besides, La Torre is becoming more “his own man” than on the previous two Queensryche albums.
Scott Rockenfield isn’t on the album, and the drums were handled by vocalist Todd La Torre himself. You can feel it. And this is where the album loses some of the extra artistic potential the songs could have developed and reached. The transitions are sparse and very minimalistic, if there are any at all. The drumming is very one-dimensional and doesn’t bring any particular movement or dynamics, let alone wit or the distinctive sound that’s unique to the drumming style of the otherwise exceptional Rockenfield. Scott is missed on the album. However Wilton and the gang defend the vision of the new album, there are compositional starting points on it that reflect the potential for an even better realization, or finalization. Queensryche settled for La Torre’s take on the drums, even though at least Casey Grillo (Kamelot) could have helped out as a special guest on the album. He’s the one who stands in for Rockenfield on the band’s current tours, which we’ll get to see on 28.07.2019 at CUK Kino Šiška in Ljubljana. Rockenfield has devoted himself entirely to his family and hasn’t even said clearly whether he plans to return to the band someday or not. His status in Queensryche is thus temporarily frozen.
“The Verdict” is a good album. It carries all of the band’s recognizable trademarks. The songs are concise, compact, and free of the experimental adventures of the post-millennium “Geoff Tate” era, which angered and divided the band’s fanbase. Still, there’s quite a lot of substance with the potential for Queensryche to squeeze considerably more out of it, expressively speaking, than they actually do. The album does have a different character, which is a good thing, but it could once again get some fans turning up their noses. Precisely because of its emphasized atmospheric gloom and quickly satisfying compositional payoff, listening to the album brings to the surface a faint, faint accent of the albums “Promised Land” (in this respect the opening Blood of the Levant is quite a surprise, quickly signaling that the new album is a different story from the expected one), “Q2K” and, if I may tease further, under a veil even “Here In The Now Frontier,” which, like a demon of the past, has lain dormant for a good many years in the underground of the whole Queensryche story.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 7.5 / 10
Tracklist:
Blood of the Levant (3:27)
2. Man The Machine (3:50)
3. Light-years (4:09)
4. Inside Out (4:31)
5. Propaganda Fashion (3:36)
6. Dark Reverie (4:23)
7. Bent (5:59)
8. Inner Unrest (3:50)
9. Launder the Conscience (5:15)
10. Portrait (5:16)
Lineup:
Todd La Torre – vocals, drums
Michael Wilton – guitar
Parker Lundgren – guitar
Eddie Jackson – bass guitar
