Now this band, is a little unlike some of my other “classics” that fell off my radar and I’m giving a fair shake after a decade of indifference. Full transparency, I was/am a huge fan of Geoff Tate. His vocal range and control drew me to Queensryche in the 90s, and when everything fell apart and the group kicked him out; I was admittedly conflicted. Frequency Unknown is an awful record…but I also never really liked anything new Queensryche has put out since their split from Geoff in 2012.

Last year, quarantine didn’t really allow for many more hobbies than the online related sort, so I gave Todd La Torre‘s solo album a spin; and I didn’t hate it. Okay, it was pretty good I had a few complaints, but its not a bad album. So now its time for me to give this new version of Queensryche a shot. Is La Torre gonna continue to do a really bad impersonation of late 90s Geoff Tate; or has he started finding his own groove.

Queensryche is: Todd La Torre (vocals), Michael Wilton (guitars), Mike Stone (guitars, backing vocals), Eddie Jackson (bass, backing vocals), Casey Grillo (drums)

• Artist: Queensryche
• Album: Digital Noise Alliance (2022)
• Label: Century Media
• Total Track Time: 60:32

In Extremis starts off with a little ambient prog metal space ship noise, but surprisingly…goes into a familiar Queensryche guitar tone and a little gallop. Interestingly the song is definitely a mixture of the older Queensrcyhe sound and a little Iron Maiden. It seems like La Torre is doing a better job at singing the song naturally instead of just trying to do a Geoff Tate impression. The song title literally means “at the brink of death”, so with a lot of time racing tempo and imagery, some consoling words and eventually flying away; its a very interesting song about being on a deathbed. The chorus is catchy as well for being a song about death. Chapters really locks into an Empire-era sound, that just really grooves along well and is sung very well. The more deliberate tempo and cadence really brings in that early 90s Ryche vibe. Another great chorus that flows and just catches in your brain as the song moves along; “A rhythm of time, a heavy load, Drifts away like a traveling show, A winter’s cold, a summer haze, And the sunset on display, Lament the years and memories, No doubt, time’s out, can’t you see?”. 

Lost in Sorrow with some of the imagery and the way its sung really feels like it could be on Operation: Mindcrime. This song is a potential pivot point for me, because the singing style is very reminiscent of Tate, and while that’s why they got La Torre, I’ve never wanted to hear him pretend to be Tate. So if the album spirals into more of this attempted Tate-era sound, I may sour, even though the song is pretty damn good. Sicdeth is heavily drum driven, so that gives a slightly unique sound to the song so far on the album, then it really steers back into more of the Iron Maiden influenced sound. While lyrically it does feel like a song about the Pandemic, its worded cleverly enough to be applied to many things. The first verse alone; “What to believe, what is deceit, it’s all around, Look at the zombies who’ll cut off their heads, they’re right beside you, Who’s lost their way and who has to pay, the truth makes no difference, My rights, bright lights, in god’s name they still pray, a season of sicdeth is calling their name”, really paints the picture of fake news, tribalism and ignoring things based on beliefs. So again, probably Pandemic inspired, so we know how I feel about that, but at least this is metaphorical enough to sound cool. Behind the Walls with a little slower tempo, more crunchy distortion and an interesting cadence, this reminds me of if Promised Land and Warning had a baby. So I’ll give the album credit, songs are jumping around in the Queensrcyhe sound, but for the most part still sounding fresh, unique and not like grasping at past clout.

Nocturnal Light so we’re continuing down around the Queensryche sound. The echoed out vocals gives early Queensryche vibes, and then we get a more mid tempo guitar driven arrangement. While the guitar tone has an almost 90s alt rock sound, to make you think of Hear in the Now Frontier there’s a few of those classic Queensryche elements which just blend nicely. As much as the little attempts to recapture old magic annoyed me to no end with their previous La Torre releases, it just feels like they’ve hit the perfect balance on nostalgia blended in with something for the newer members to latch on to. Out of the Black is the first song that doesn’t really conjure any immediately correlations for me, which is necessarily a bad thing. I think my biggest issue with it is while it doesn’t sound out of place, there’s something with the rhythm and the general pacing of the song that feels like it doesn’t fit the album. While I’ve been grooving along prior to this song, it just feels…skippable. Forest is a slow song that isn’t unusual to the band, this just feels super Simon & Garfunkel or Pink Floyd since I do get Comfortably Numb vibes. So yeah, it’s not offensive, but coming off a song I don’t feel really fits, trying to lull me to sleep isn’t where the smart money is.

Realms okay where to begin with this song. Its terribly…mediocre. The song is just a very simple radio rock song that has no profound message, it just exists and gets from point A to point B, and I will never remember this song exists unless I’m looking at a track list. Hold On is kind of what I want to say to this album. The first half was really good and I was enjoying the nostalgic nuggets mixed with a few newer wrinkles, but we’ve hit a weird valley in the song quality. Now we get yet another song about trying to make it through all the insanity the last few years have thrown at us and “hold on, make it through the rain”. Did they exhaust all of their clever metaphors and they’re just going for the static prog metal song about hope? Tormentum okay, wait we actually have a nice riff with some dark color and crunch. “Now who’s the victim, you’vе crossed that line // Indignation, lights again, Suffocation, lights again, Domination, lights again, Isolation, lights again” interesting lyrics, they even have a spoken news sample verse. So this has a few of those classic Queensryche elements while also feeling a little heavier and darker than they tend to stay in. Finally the back half of this album has a pretty good song. Rebel Yell; you didn’t read that wrong, it’s a Billy Idol cover. So vocally it’s okay, but it definitely does not have the same cool factor and swing as the original. The arrangement is also almost an exact match, so they don’t even ‘make it their own’. So when it comes down to sonics and musicianship, the cover is accurate; but it doesn’t feel like a cool or slinky song like it should. When the song is about a passionate one night stand, it has to have some attitude.

Wow, this album is almost a tale of two extremes. I will admit the better portion of the back half wasn’t as bad as it was mediocre, but still; to start off strong and then have to coast to the end because you ran out of gas, is a little sad. As someone who is firmly in the ‘no one can replace Geoff’ camp; the first like 6 songs were a good attempt at making me move on from him at least. Even though I was disappointed with the quite a few songs, its better than being disappointed with the entire album. So new look Queensryche is finally starting to find their footing in my opinion.

Is the album terrible? Of course not. Also, the early quality really does bolster the overall score about mediocrity. If you’ve enjoyed new Queensryche, you’ll probably have less complaints than I do. So while it’s the best Queensrcyhe album since Operation: Mindcrime 2 (2006), that’s really not saying much.

Final Judgment: 6.95/10