The subtle change in style that occurred with the first two albums progresses again here on Rage for Order. After a quite heavy and fast EP, The Warning was a much more mid-tempo and progressive album. You can hear on this album that the band has matured its sound again, still utilising all of the bells and whistles they have been picking up along their journey, but moving their music into a clear and defined direction. Listen to these early albums after each other and you can hear how their sound develops and refines over that period. Rage for Order sits comfortably in the middle ground between the progressive elements of The Warning and the heavier brilliance that comes forth on Operation: Mindcrime.
The strongest material on this album still holds its own in the Queensrÿche machine. It starts off with the brilliant "Walk in the Shadows", still one of my favourite Queensrÿche songs. Terrific harmonic vocals along with a brilliant riff and solo, it kicks off the album in killer style. This leaps into "I Dream in Infrared" where the real maturity of the band comes to life. This segues beautifully into "The Whisper" where Tate really hits those high notes that make it almost impossible to sing along with him while listening to the song.
I wasn't aware that "Gonna Get Close to You" was a cover of a Dalbello song. I still don't really know nor have I heard any of Dalbello's music, so I can't judge it on that. To be honest this song has never done a lot for me, and the fact it was the first single off the album is also a little mystifying. This is followed by "The Killing Words" which also fails to grab me on both arms and shake me. I think it's the vocal arrangement here that isn't quite right here, it comes off as repeated moaning more than a calculated vocal string. The songs aren't bad but they instil in me a sense of boredom more than anything else.
The album lifts again with the duo of "Surgical Strike" and "Neue Regel". "Surgical Strike" was the closing song of Side A on the vinyl release, and does a great job of completing that half of the album. The B side comes at you with some killer material, starting off with the harder "Neue Regel" and the faster pace of "Chemical Youth (We Are Rebellion)", with a great chorus and then a final fade out of guitar solo over a brilliant rolling drum beat. From here the slow chanting of "London" thumps its way through the bass of your speakers, before the seminal "Screaming in Digital" crashes out of the stereo, harnessing all of the progressive nature the band has built up, and all of the tricks and detail they have been throwing out there and meshing them into this three and a half minutes of total majesty. Just magnificent. The only downside for me is that the album then finishes with "I Will Remember" which loses all of the impact the previous five songs have made on you. Sure, write this song, and play this song. But why place it here when there was so much energy and passion running through most of the rest of the album, only to have the ballad at the end to wipe away some of that good feeling that had been engineered. If anything, it should have come after "The Killing Words" and allowed the second half of the album to be ruled by those other songs.
Rage for Order is an eclectic mix of the powerful and the thoughtful, the hard and the mellow, the electric and the clear. The progressive metal nature of the album means that you will be faced by songs that you may not be able to totally invest in. Certainly for me that includes those songs I have mentioned as being on the lesser side of my enjoyment. But when you hear the cream here, songs such as "Walk in the Shadows", "I Dream in Infrared", "Chemical Youth (We Are Rebellion)" and "Screaming in Digital", then you can fully appreciated the brilliance of this band. It may not be perfect, but it is full of material that is impossible not to enjoy.
Rating: I can cure the hunger that burns in your heart. 4/5
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