OPERATION : MINDCRIME II

I approached this album with extreme caution after having been a Q fan since the original Mindcrime was flying off the shelves. I watched the band essentially disappear into the alternative rock scene and churn out 3 1/2 horrible albums since Promised Land (it being only half decent). I scoffed at the idea that Q was going to try to recapture their glory with mediocre songwriting covered with a popular title...and just what prog metal needs...another band doing a sequel!!!

Well, immediately, I put all these negative thoughts to rest. This album seemed to fly by, and now at 2:00 AM I'm on the 7th listen today (I haven't listened to an album this much since Scenes From A Memory's release if that says anything and ironc considering the current feud between Mike Portnoy and Geoff Tate). The first real song, "I'm American" grabs you in the same way that "Revolution Calling" grabbed you on the first album. The album never really loses momentum. The songs average close to 4:00 so ideas never grow stale. The vocal arrangements are interesting, and although there is no "Eyes of a Stranger" on this album, Tate turns out a very good performance (shame on the reviewer below for his comments...I'd be interested in hearing anyone try to sing this material).

All-in-all, Queensryche seems to have remembered that they helped to pioneer progressive metal and wisely decided to return to that format rather than the misery they've put out in the past 10 years. The original Mindcrime will always be a better album than this because no sequel is ever really as innocent as the original concept. However, this album is not stale on ideas and doesn't borrow riffs/arrangements from the original and stays true to the approach of the original.

I can't call this a masterpiece at this point because I haven't fully gotten into the storyline. However, if you're disappointed in this album, it's very likely that you have become jaded or are perhaps just too much of a Dream Theater fanboy to overlookthe soap opera drama between Portnoy and Tate.