By Avinash Mittur
As most of you all know, as of May 2013 the music world has two bands calling themselves Queensrÿche. The version led by vocalist Geoff Tate has been touring the nation performing the original lineup’s classic Operation: Mindcrime album, but not before spending about six weeks in the studio putting together a new effort, Frequency Unknown. Many amazingly talented musicians got the chance to throw an ingredient into this musical gumbo, including a handful of the best the Bay Area has to offer. Sadly, the resulting record is a fundamentally mediocre hard rock album. While Frequency Unknown is extremely far removed from the sound that Queensrÿche established its legacy on, this album isn’t the trainwreck that many were expecting it to be.
The songs on Frequency Unknown all sound as if they’re written for mainstream rock radio, not for Queensrÿche fans or hell, even for Geoff Tate himself. The opening track ‘Cold’ rides a big, lumbering and in-your-face riff that is cool in and of itself, but is wholly uncharacteristic of the weaving, intricate melodies that the DeGarmo/Wilton team featured in spades. This isn’t a knock on guitarist and Bay Area badass Craig Locicero, whose grooving rhythm playing is often a highlight of these songs. Rather, it’s simply disappointing that what was once a signature of Queensryche’s songs has disappeared entirely from the writing on Frequency Unknown. Locicero’s driving rhythm playing is given a place to shine on ‘Everything’, probably the single catchiest song on this album. Out of all the songs on Frequency Unknown, ‘Everything’ comes closest to recapturing the magic of Queensrÿche’s classic output. This song, ‘Life Without You’ and ‘Fallen’ feature great vocals and melodies from Tate, who sticks to his still solid mid-range throughout Frequency Unknown. It’s somewhat interesting to note that Frequency Unknown features a smattering of Bay Area veterans: guitarist Locicero and Chris Cannella, drummers Paul Bostaph and Evan Bautista, guitarists Brad Gillis and Dave Meniketti and bassist Jason Slater are all some of the baddest players the Bay Area has on tap, and Frequency Unknown nearly always benefits from their professional performances.
Unfortunately, the three tracks mentioned above are the highest points reached on Frequency Unknown. After following the highlight ‘Cold’, second track ‘Dare’ stumbles along with a genuinely awful riff, lame macho lyrics from Tate and a hilariously stupid xylophone exhibition. The same happens to ‘Slave’, a song that tries too damn hard to be heavier than it really is. Tate’s echoed declarations of “You’re their bitch!” is the kind of thing fans would expect from a testosterone obsessed nu-metal band, not the dude who wrote the lyrics to ‘Roads to Madness’. No reasonable fan would expect Geoff Tate to sound like the screaming banshee from the self-titled EP these days, but the guy’s vocals falter rather shockingly here and there. ‘Running Backwards’ is the biggest culprit in that regard, with Tate sounding painfully strained and tired. This track in particular is a weird one; the CD booklet we were provided with claims that ex-Judas Priest axeman K.K. Downing played the guitar solo on ‘Running Backwards’, but the solo heard here offers literally no signs of the man’s one of a kind style. It’s worth noting that Metal Assault was provided with the new remixed version of Frequency Unknown– on the original mix, a different guitar solo that was unmistakably played by Downing is featured on ‘Running Backwards’. When it comes to the other all-star guitar solos on Frequency Unknown, they’re all fun to listen to on their own merits (Meniketti’s solo on ‘Fallen’ and Cannella’s on ‘Slave’ are particularly killer ones), but few of them actually improve their songs in an overall musical sense.
When all is said and done, Frequency Unknown is simply an okay collection of hard rock songs. With a bar set as low as Dedicated to Chaos, these guys would have had to try really hard to make a record worse than that one. Though there are a few outright duds on Frequency Unknown, some of the songs are enjoyable, with a couple warranting a handful of repeat listens. That being said, ‘a handful of repeat listens’ is a long way off from the countless spins I have and will continue to give The Warning, the self-titled EP and Operation: Mindcrime. This isn’t even a question of this album bearing little resemblance to the Queensrÿche of old- Frequency Unknown simply fails to live up to the Queensrÿche legacy in a way that longtime fans would expect from a band in its thirty-first year of existence. Frequency Unknown isn’t terrible, but frankly it really isn’t very good either.
Rating: 5.5/10
Note: As mentioned before, Metal Assault was provided with the remixed version of Frequency Unknown. Fans who bought the version featuring the original mix can contact Cleopatra Records for a free copy of the new version. Some may also be wondering why the re-recorded tracks weren’t mentioned here. The four songs are tacked on with the intent of them being ‘bonus tracks’- stacking them all at the end did nothing to disrupt or impede the flow of Frequency Unknown’s original material. The re-recorded tracks are pretty horrible though; fans are infinitely better off just picking up the original albums.
Record Label: Cleopatra Records
Release Dates:
April 23, 2013 (US)
June 3, 2013 (UK)
Track Listing:
1. Cold
2. Dare
3. Give It to You
4. Slave
5. In the Hands of God
6. Running Backwards
7. Life Without You
8. Everything
9. Fallen
10. The Weight of the World
11. I Don’t Believe in Love (Re-Recorded)
12. Empire (Re-Recorded)
13. Jet City Woman (Re-Recorded)
14. Silent Lucidity (Re-Recorded)
Links:
facebook.com/queensryche
queensryche.com