Up until now, those who have been ordained to persevere in preserving Queensrÿche’s legacy have opted to avoid the trappings of retrospection. They have left this to their erstwhile frontman and one-person publicity magnet Geoff Tate, who has mined the nostalgia gravy train for all it is worth. Instead of looking back, the post-Tate incarnation of the band (now fronted by the equally golden larynx Todd La Torre) have chosen to surge forward with a flurry of decent releases, culminating in 2023’s rather spiffing “Digital Noise Alliance”.
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Nostalgia is a potent force. It’s your own personal Time Machine, allowing us to revisit the sounds and the essence of our past exploits. It also has highly redemptive and restorative powers. It allows the whitewashing of career indiscretions and focuses on the highs, while simultaneously burying the lows. Queensryche are case in point, as the 80’s morphed into the 90’s they seemed poised to join Maiden and Metallica in the really big league of metallic heavy weights. “Operation Mindcrime “had position them as the thinking person’s metal band and follow-up “Empire” increased tenfold their commercial clout, thrusting them into arena status. For a short smidgen of time they had the Midas touch and could do no wrong. Then grunge happened.
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Who can argue that Operation: Mindcrime is one of the greatest metal concept albums of all time? - and arguably one of the finest that rock & roll in general ever produced. I’d pretty much worn the tape threadbare back in the late ’80’s on my blag Walkman, in the days were teenagers used to walk everywhere with a bag full of ferric tapes. The album struck a chord with me at a time when Rock and Metal music was to me in its transcendence; it became my life, as did this album.
30 years on (where the hell did that go?) and NOW my phone has unlimited access to millions of songs covering all that man has created. I’m regularly drawn back to Mindcrime. It sounds better than ever after the remastered job of 2003 and it’s part of my rock DNA, spiraling through my soul.