OPERATION: MINDCRIME

There are albums that are good and make you take notice, and there are albums that transport you to a new place and time. Mindcrime for me is the latter. I bought this album as a cassette after reading an article in Guitar magazine when both were the standards of the day in the late 80's. I had no idea what I was in for.

The second side of the album is some of the best 80's metal ever produced, including the great singles "I Don't Believe in Love," "Eyes of a Stranger," and one of my faves, "The Needle Lies."

But the second side is a pale comparison to one of my favorite musical experience of all time, side one, which to my thinking, should not be broken up. Each song is extremely strong on its own merit, but more importantly is part of the greater story. Perhaps the greatest fault of Mindcrime is that it's climactic moment (Nikki's decision to leave the underground) happens on side one.

"Suite Sister Mary" is the climax of the prog masterpiece that is side one, a clean riff in 7 that includes a gothic chorus that evokes Carmina Burana or Mr. Roboto whether you're forgiving or cynical. To me, it works here perfectly and is the track that Queensryche forever wanted to make. Like much prog, at the time it was criticized for being too pretentious. Similarly, "Revolution Calling" was an overdone protest song that sadly has way too many truths to tell even today.

When this album was released, nothing of it's kind existed. Prog metal as we know it did not exist. There were no metal rock operas. Concept albums were out of style. The only prog giant having any real success was Pink Floyd with Momentary Lapse of Reason. Queensryche changed what could be done with the metal palette created by Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Along with Images and Words, this album that moved prog metal from a fringe idea to a real genre with an audience.

It is an essential part of every prog collection, metal collection, and anyone who claims they like prog metal and does not know this album forwards and backwards has some homework to do.

5/5