Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
The Warning is without doubt one of those albums that benefited from my album expansion choice this year, as it’s an album that has a number of serious flaws and an album that usually receives a less than gracious rating on most metal sites out there. But what the album does have in abundance, is the core sound that Queensryche would soon corner in a few years time. Also featured and the stronger recording here, is the four track EP that was put out by the band the previous year (I’ve added a review of the EP below this album) As an album The Warning even without the EP is still good enough to appear on this list and it’s an album that I have to admit grows on me with each listen. I first listened to it many years ago but am far more impressed with it now, as it was the album that I was least familiar with from the band. Queensryche came together just two years earlier in Seattle under the dull name of The Mob and follow on from a line of talented bands from that city, several years later of course Seattle and the sub-genre grunge would be forced down everybody’s throats and everybody in the world knew about Seattle! The band were essentially fronted by Geoff Tate-vocals, Chris DeGarmo-guitar and Michael Wilton-guitar, all three dominated the direction and writing of the band, and it’s also pretty interesting how they changed the band’s direction from the EP to that of their debut album. The former discussed below covers classic metal in the band’s pompous style, whereas on The Warning their music enters into progressive metal territory which for many could be a dodgy affair. The Warning therefore sees the band drifting away from their early Judas Priest influences, as their classic metal sound is now tinged with mystical and occult style progressive elements and the album has a concept theme in George Orwell’s 1984 but in execution it shouldn't be considered a concept album. But the main drifting away from that Judas Priest sound, is the band’s avoidance at this stage to either tread into a commercial metal camp or embrace a more technical and darker Stained Class style of metal, both the former and latter would’ve been extremely contemporary here for 1984. Instead Queensryche have gone in for a more medium paced epic metal sound, with more complex structures, all resulting in a progressive style. At times this style works well and is memorable, but at other times it certainly doesn’t, resulting in a number of pedestrian sounding tracks that feel overly long to the listener. The band though kept faith with this sound and in their ability, and very soon of course the band would reap the dividends of this style and give us a sound that was distinctly Queensryche. The pick of the tracks where the band’s new approach work really well can be found on “En Force” which is a track where the band’s emotional drive comes to the forefront and is written by Chris DeGarmo. "No Sanctuary" is a beautifully written effort and a style that the band always did well and "Take Hold of the Flame" is the band at their most addictive and became a hit single in Japan (I did say previously that those Japanese had taste) Final track is the 9 minute epic "Roads to Madness" the most accomplished effort on the album and demonstrates Geoff Tate's incredible vocal range. Whilst on the flip side of the coin, tracks like the album opener “Warning” the songs fall somewhere between a rock and a hard place. A track like “Deliverance” has a glorious opening section thanks to Michael Wilton the song writer, but its then odd fusion of Iron Maiden meets Marillion proves that the band were getting a bit too clever for their own good on this complex effort. "N M 156" is one of the most complex tracks on the album covering the subject of technological nightmare and whenever I listen to it, it sounds like a juxtaposed effort of metal meets Marillion and I half expect Geoff Tate to be singing 'Punch and Judy' half the time. "Before the Storm" is definitely treading water and "Child of Fire" is pretty meh despite becoming more engaging as the song progresses. Overall the album has a running time of 48 mins and despite its epic trappings it feels waaaaaaay to long. For example, taking a metal album of similar time from this era like Kill ‘Em All, that album just seems to fly by and feels like it fills out every rivet of time, sadly the same can’t be said for The Warning which does lag, but despite all this it’s an intriguing listen. Finally every new generation of rock tends to throw up around half a dozen exceptional vocalists, as in singers that are blessed with an exceptional set of pipes, some of these vocalists excel in one particular vocal style whilst others can lend their voice to a variety of styles. With the birth of Queensryche in 1982 the band would soon boast of having without doubt one of the most gifted vocalists of his generation in Geoff Tate, whose incredible range would soon embark the band on an impressive run of albums and a vocal capacity that would be the envy of many a singer out there.

Geoff Tate- Vocals
Chris DeGarmo- Guitar
Michael Wilton- Guitar
Eddie Jackson- Bass
Scott Rockenfield- Drums

Production- James Guthrie

The Lowdown
In the space of two years Queensryche put out two recordings that could easily be described as chalk and cheese in terms of execution. Their debut album as explained above was a difficult sounding progressive metal affair, that certainly entered choppier waters than it should’ve done, whereas the previous EP by the band was a far more straightforward classic metal affair, where the band’s love for the likes of Dio, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were certainly very obvious. That’s not to say that the four tracks on this EP were basic metal tracks in any way, as the band’s members had a bit too much in their locker to dish out something basic, instead the four tracks here display a real richness that the band had in abundance. The four tracks start with “Queen of the Reich” a track that has that trademark Iron Maiden style gallop, but Queensryche end up doing this style in an even choppier manner that feels very unique to them. The song is basically a glorious 4 plus minutes and midway through the track, there is some great work by the band especially from guitarists Chris DeGarmo and Michael Winton who are in full cry here and basically not even Iron Maiden themselves could’ve done better here. Second track the “Nightrider” kind of reminds me of Ozzy era Black Sabbath in the way it starts, as I could easily imagine evil Ozzy laughing in place of Goeff Tate here at the beginning of the song. The song though ends up as being an interesting mix between mid-paced metal and speedier metal, as things speed up considerably later on in the song. Third track “Blinded” is seen by some as the weaker track here, but the song is still carried by the voice of Geoff Tate and the song still remains powerful. The best though is saved till last in the glorious power ballad “The Lady Wore Black” a song that perfectly showcases the voice of Geoff Tate and was written solely by Chris DeGarmo, who imo was the most talented of the trio that wrote most of the band’s material, he writes both tracks one and four here, the two strongest efforts on the EP. All four songs have musical references to classic metal artists and Queensryche proved that they could hold their own even at this stage with these artists over these tracks. But instead of building with this style, the band were aiming for something even higher in both progressive and concept metal instead and this would become obvious over the next couple of years. Finally my only regret about this EP, is that the band didn’t use all four tracks on the above album, because if they had The Warning would’ve been chasing a top 10 position on this year’s list instead of dicing it up around the top 20 slot.

Geoff Tate- Vocals
Chris DeGarmo- Guitar
Michael Wilton- Guitar
Eddie Jackson- Bass
Scott Rockenfield- Drums

Production- Queensryche

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