Believe or not this is the first Queensryche studio album I have reviewed. This seems strange to me because I have been a fan of Queensryche since 1984 and writing for Metal-Rules.com since 2001, which covers seven or eight albums worth of Queensryche studio releases. However, for a big chunk of that time, I was not a big fan of what the band was doing for about 20 years from 1994 to 2013. The old saying goes, if you don’t have anything nice to say…. and besides other staff members were willing to cover those albums so all is well.
I did however fully back on board when Todd took over the vocal spot and everything they have done since is great. I’ve talked to many people and I feel you really can break the bands career into three phases; the 80’s (first four albums) then a big stylistic change for the 90’s and 00’s and eight albums, and the new era, the Century Media years. When I started this review, one thing I told myself is that I was not going to dwell on past-members, which seems to be a common of every Queensryche review recently. Why can’t the band be judged on current merit, not on who or what once was?
Here we are three albums deep into the bands ‘comeback’ (even though they never really went away) and I feel that most observers would agree that the band, with the new singer and the new record label deal, has a renewed sense of vigour and purpose. They are making some of the best music they have ever made. THE VERDICT is no exception.