585. Queensryche / Dedicated to Chaos. 2011. 1.5/5

Waiting for a new Queensryche album in recent years has been like waiting for the birth of you first child, and wondering will it be a boy or a girl - the difference being, you wonder whether the Queensryche you love will show up, or the one you are indifferent to. Queensryche albums have had a difficult time trying to live up to the band's initial releases, and one could only begin to guess where their latest release would be trending towards.
Simple answer... it’s like listening to a lounge club act. Is it a truly bad album? No, the musicianship and vocals are as good as ever. But it is so radically different from what I love from this band.
It’s just one of those things. 20 years ago, Def Leppard made a permanent move away from heavy music to begin producing the sugar-coated syrupy stuff they have recorded from Slang onwards. There was no pretence on their part. As a band they just decided that this was the music that they wanted to produce, and you either liked it, or complained about it, or moved on. Queensryche has been on a similar path for over a decade themselves, though it has been disguised a little more over the course of several albums. With this release however, they have completed that journey, and again, as with Def Leppard, there is no pretence.

This is almost a grunge album, more than a decade after this type of music really began to phase out. There are no super solos, there is none of the brilliant intricate drumming that Scott Rockenfield is renown for. There are no super soaring vocals from Geoff Tate. Every song blends into the next. On the first five or six times that I listened to the album, I truly did not know where one song ended and the next started.

I think this needs to be approached from a different angle if you are to get anything out of it. Those who listen to this without any ideas of the history behind the band may well find they enjoy it. Fans of the band who are able to roll with the punches and accept that this is the final direction that this band has headed may also be able to find some goodness in it. Many old school fans will be enormously disappointed.

I guess all I can reiterate as a personal valuation is this; technically in musicianship and mixing, this album sounds great. For someone who still believes that Operation: Mindcrime is one of the five best albums ever recorded, this may as well have been a Coldplay album. And I hate Coldplay with a passion. Et tu Queensryche? Et tu...

584. Therapy? / We're Here to the End. 2010. 3.5/5

It has taken over 20 years for Therapy? to put out a live opus, but when they did, they crammed it full of every song imaginable - all 36 of them stuffed onto 2 CDs. Quite an amazing feat. And whilst I was looking forward to the album, I wondered how the material was going to hold up under a stern examination.

On my first listen I admit I was disappointed. Many of the songs seem to have been played at a slower tempo, and just don't live up to anger and angst that the studio versions emit. In essence, pretty much all the live versions of songs off Troublegum still just don't match up to those original versions, and that's after having seen them live, and having the live DVD Scopophobia and various webcasts and bootleg videos of the band playing live. This was another test of their performance, and they still can't bring the magic of Troublegum to a live setting.
OK, so stop harping on that and get over it. Listen again. Take in the performances. Feel the energy of the crowd, and how the band are feeding off that. Listen to the song streak of "Die Like a Mother Fucker", "Stories" and "Meat Abstract". Revel in the joy that is the live version of "Diane" without cellos! Sure, you can cringe through songs like "A Moment of Clarity", but be redeemed by "If it Kills Me" and "Knives" and " The Head That Tried to Strangle Itself".
The audience reaction/participation is at the forefront in this recording, and that does add an authenticity to it. Some bands these days try to remove the audience from live recordings - why? I don't know. On this live album the crowd is a member of the band and a vital part of the recording. They in fact enhance this release, because they are singing what you are singing while listening to it.

The band sounds great. Andy's vocals do not always withstand the clinical environment of listening to a live album in the home. When in attendance at the gig, his vocals blend with the crowd and thus sound great. Without the crowd in my living room, some songs are unable to withstand the sometime off-key vocals. But that's why live albums are never as good as actually being at the gig, because they can never completely recreate the live experience. Once again, I try to stop harping on it and just enjoy it.

This is a good live album that covers twenty years of the band's history. Fans will love it, detractors will not. I still sit on the positive side of the fence in the middle.

583. Stryper / The Covering. 2011. 3/5

I think there is always an initial excitement when a band you like brings out a 'covers' album, especially when so many of the songs/artists on said release are also big favourites of your own! And so it was when this release was first announced that I felt a tingle of anticipation.
 Having said that, the other main thing that must be made about covers albums is that the versions of the songs done very rarely match up to the original versions, and after a few listens the cover album generally gets placed on the CD shelf and is left to its own devices.

In all respects I could leave the review there, but that may be a little unfair.

The songs chosen could easily have been a best-of selection of 1980's heavy metal - could almost have been the song list I would have chosen if I was putting together just such a compilation. I guess there is an inherent danger in taking on songs of this magnitude - they are some of the most recognisable songs in heavy metal history, and if they aren't done justice it can be a cruel blow.
Cutting to the chase, and the good news is that the boys have done a good job on the album. The songs have been somewhat "Stryper-ised", in that they do not possess the raw power and heavyness of the original material, and they have quite rightly attuned the guitars and music to a "Stryper-ised" sound without compromising the basis of the music. So if you have come looking for a modern metal take on these songs you have come to the wrong place. However, if you have come to see how this very good band interprets some of the best metal songs of all time, then it is worth a listen.

Most of the songs have the tempo just dialled back a little from the original versions. My interest was always going to be focused on two specific elements. First was the guitaring of Oz Fox and Michael Sweet, and the best way to describe it is 'efficient'. Having seen the band live I guess I was hoping for some ripping solos from the two of them. What you get is some very good guitaring which never really breaks out of the mould, apart from perhaps the Kansas song "Carry on Wayward Son". Mind you, they are up against some of the best of all time, so it's a tough task. Second was the vocals of Michael Sweet, and how he approached the task at hand. There is a lot of double tracking of vocals, which works on most songs, though perhaps not on Iron Maiden's "The Trooper". Sweet has always had an awesome voice, but again is up against some of the best in the business in Dickinson, Halford, Osbourne and Dio.
In conclusion, I can but repeat my remarks from the beginning of the review. It's great to hear a band love the same songs that you do, and make an album of them. Once you have listened to it 8 to 10 times, as I have since buying it two days ago, you begin to crave listening to the original songs again, and start burrowing through the CD shelves to find them. They are good versions of these great songs, and the band is faultless in their musicianship. Michael Sweet's vocals soar as they always do. But the novelty can only last for a certain period of time, and then you will move on.