Q2K

After the blunder of Hear in the Now Frontier comes this atrocious offering. How could such a great band go so wrong? Much of the failure of this album comes from the departure of founding guitarist Chris DeGarmo who decided that he was no longer having fun. Geoff Tate is a good lyricist, but he always relied on Chris for that extra something. Without it, the songs are insipid and banal. His replacement was Kelly Gray, a guitarist who lives the rock star lifestyle despite no successes to his name (he sucks as a producer too, Nevermore's Enemies of Reality had to be remixed because of his shoody "production"). Apparently three of his friends died on tour from excess. The album title and art fool you into thinking that QR is returning to the robotic themes of yore. Nope. Instead, we get psuedo-ballads.

Only How Coud I? and Sacred Ground come close to capturing the spirit of the golden days. Now I know a prog band shouldn't sound the same on each album, but QR abandoned everything that distinguished it in the late 80/early 90s and went for straightfoward rock. Even Geoff's voice isn't great; so many effects were added to his vox that it ruins the greatest voice in prog metal, perhaps all metal. HitNF at least had ties to prog. This album is QR's worst, though it would be redeemed by the excellent Tribe and the suprisingly good Operation Mindcrime II.