A Casual Review of Queensrÿche’s Condition Hüman

Note: Condition Hüman is scheduled for release October 2, 2015. For whatever reason, I was able to download the whole album from Amazon.com a couple weeks ago. That download is not currently available.


For almost two decades, Queensrÿche fans have had to worry about whether the next album from “the thinking man’s metal band” will suck, but with the release of Condition Hüman this month, they need worry no longer. The new lineup’s second album shows La Torre and company have command of the sound that made Queensrÿche great.

A quick primer: In the mid-1980s Queensrÿche was an influential band in the rise of progressive metal. In 1988 they released Operation: Mindcrime, widely considered one of the greatest concept albums ever, and their next album, Empire (1990), dominated the airwaves. Its follow-up, Promised Land (1994), was also successful, but Hear in the Now Frontier (1997) was . . . trying for all involved and marked the beginning of a period of changes in lineup and style that divided fans. By Dedicated to Chaos in 2012, the music so little resembled Queensrÿche that for many fans it was the last straw--as it was for most of the band members. Soon after, the rest of the guys booted lead singer Geoff Tate, citing him for the band’s problems. A legal squabble ensued and the rest of the band won the rights to the name Queensrÿche.

The new lineup, now with frontman Todd La Torre, promised a return to the band’s heavier early sound and delivered just that on tour and with their first release, the self-titled Queensrÿche (2013). This was promising, and Condition Hüman continues in the same vein with even more polish on the characteristic Queensrÿche sound. A good example is the song “Guardian”:

 

I like this song. On first listen, the opening barrage of drums from Scott Rockenfield was a jaw-dropping moment that said, “Stop what you’re doing and listen.” In the video, guitarist Parker Lundgren shows off some overhand fretting, Michael Wilton’s guitar solo hearkens back to the original Operation: Mindcrime and ends with something too fast for hüman ears. I’m less able to pick out the bass, but reviewers have mentioned Eddie Jackson’s renewed vigor.

The musicians of Queensrÿche are flexing their muscles and showing off. Bill and Ted of cinematic fame might not be “thinking men,” but I suspect they would dub this “Excellent!”

If anything is missing from Condition Hüman, it is the experimentalism bordering on unhinged vision that crops up throughout much of the band’s discography. This is a crucial ingredient of what has made the best of Queensrÿche so great and it may very well have come from Tate. Without it, whether the new Queensrÿche can fully live up to the old remains to be seen. However, Tate--whom the other founding members claim became increasingly domineering over the years--brought a slewing, erratic vision that made the worst of Queensrÿche unlistenable for many who had been hardcore fans.

The new group appears determined to stay the course set in its early years but to also be a whole band again. Parker Lundgren, who first joined Queensrÿche toward the end of The Great Iffy years, was given the option of staying or leaving at the time of Tate’s firing, but if he stayed, he was going to be a fully participating member of the band rather than just a hired hand, and both he and La Torre have participated in the songwriting ever since. Perhaps this new cohesion and new input will lead Queensrÿche to new heights.

If by booting Tate the rest of the guys intended to take back their band, Condition Hüman makes it clear that they did just that, at least for those fans who always wondered what went wrong in the late 90s. I learned to like much that Queensrÿche released during the controversial years, but I also knew the fear, the fear that half the songs on the next album might be strange shit out of left field. Thankfully, this fear is now gone. We no longer need to ask if the next Queensrÿche album will be good--only how good it will be.

 

A previous post on Queensrÿche:

A Casual Review of the Todd La Torre-fronted Queensrÿche’s Debut Album

To Stephen King’s Dark Tower Came I

*There are spoilers ahead.*

 

I’m not surprised that shortly after declaring a blog slowdown, I’m back with another post. Having just finished reading Stephen King’s magnum opus, the Dark Tower series, I feel moved to post a retrospective.

I was in middle school or junior high when I first stumbled across a hardback copy of The Gunslinger (1982), the first book in the series, on display in the dusty old public library of Tipton, Iowa. The novel’s blend of dark fantasy, science fiction and Western appealed to my boyish imagination, and scenes like Roland’s slaughter of an entire town and copulation with a succubus were more graphic than anything else I had read. The illustrations by Michael Whelan were also captivating. The one on the cover of the first edition shows the moment before Roland, in his single-minded pursuit of the Dark Tower, lets the boy Jake drop to his death.

 

After a move to another small town in the Midwest, I ran across the next book in the series, The Drawing of the Three (1987), in a different public library, and spent hours there, tucked back in the stacks, reading the B-format paperback illustrated by Phil Hale. Despite publishing other books at a good clip, King spaced out much of the Dark Tower series, going as long as seven years between volumes, before releasing the last three in quick succession from 2003 to 2004. By then, I was a working stiff undergoing some early mid-life tumult, so I never made it to the final volume until now.

Stephen King long ago established his place as a master storyteller, but I simply didn’t enjoy Song of Susannah (2004) either time I read it, and I felt the earlier sections of The Dark Tower (2004) labored under the same problems--clunky plotting, too much of the made-up High Speech, a digressive writing style, and a lack of forward thrust. Nonetheless, the novel finds its groove partway through--and the results are unforgettable.

One highlight of the book was the new character Irene Tassenbaum. Character is one of King’s greatest strengths as a writer--novel-length psychological portraits by other writers rarely come close to what he can accomplish in a few pages--and it doesn’t take long to feel like you know Irene. She’s a bored and pampered housewife excited by Roland and possessed of grit equal to the challenges of her adventure with him.

 

While Irene was a pleasant surprise, I was reading from page one in expectation of what would pass between Roland and Jake. They’re linked by fate rather than blood, but there are heavy father-son issues there. I would never forgive King if he let Roland kill Jake again. In the end, King handles this deftly and with little fanfare. I won’t give away what happens, but I will say that as I read the epilogue, I had tears in my eyes like I haven’t when reading a book for a long time.

And of course there is always the Dark Tower itself, the nexus of all worlds. Roland Deschain of Gilead does indeed reach it and climb to the room at the top of the stairs. Having read some whining by readers online, I was prepared to be disappointed, but no, King delivers admirably on the promise contained in the The Gunslinger. It is truly epic in the sense of “very great or large and usually difficult or impressive” as wells as in the sense of “relating to, or having the characteristics of an epic <an epic poem>” (Merriam-Webster)--and indeed, the series was inspired by the poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” by Robert Browning.

Apparently talks have been going on for years regarding possible television and film series--and the graphic novels are impressive--but as nice as those things might be, are they that nice? I began the series in libraries whose books were an important part of their character, and I still believe books are one of the best ways for people to acquire character, too. Today, our world has “moved on” much like All-World in the Dark Tower series, leaving us hungry for the sustenance books can provide but all too often seeking it in flimsier, easier media.

The Dark Tower books are entertaining and inspiring, impressive and sometimes frustrating, genre-blending and mind-bending, and, ultimately, rewarding. I would recommend the series to anyone who loves imaginative fiction and strongly encourage also reading the standalone novel The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012). I may be skeptical about the value of bringing the series to the silver or small screens, but I would gladly read more Dark Tower from Stephen King.

 

Other retrospectives:

The Trials of Dune
A Look Back at Me and U2