Queensrÿche - Take Cover
Not all covers albums are created alike. When younger bands make them, like Between the Buried and Me, they're showing off. When older bands make them, like Ministry and Queensrÿche, they're wistfully looking back. Or, perhaps in the case of the latter, they've run out of new ideas.Welcome to the Machine (Pink Floyd)Welcome to the Machine (Queensrÿche)Welcome to the Machine (Shadows Fall)
Thus, Take Cover (Rhino, 2007) is an unintentionally apt title. A flat-footed attempt at The Police's "Synchronicity II" robs the song of all grace and mystery. A live rendition of U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky" is horribly bloated. The O'Jay's "For the Love of Money" suffers the greatest disgrace, undergoing bar band-esque demolition. Queensrÿche have no business going near black music.
However, two moments shine bright. The first is Peter Gabriel's "Red Rain." Ill Niño recorded the song on The Under Cover Sessions (why must all covers albums have horrible punny titles?), but the cover was just that. In contrast, Queensrÿche slip into the song; Geoff Tate's voice resembles Gabriel's in thickness and drama. After the band's leadfooted last few records, it's refreshing to hear Scott Rockenfield reinterpret Stewart Copeland's agile hi-hats.
Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" is another logical choice, given Queensrÿche's Floydian tendencies (e.g., "Silent Lucidity"). Shadows Fall gamely took on the song in The Art of Balance, but Queensrÿche make the song theirs. Tate's voice hasn't spread its wings like this in years. The paranoia on Mindcrime owes much to Floyd; perhaps this revisiting will help regain that edge.
Labels: clee, heavy metal, usa
8 Comments:
pfft. Mindcrime is no doubt their best whole album, but their best work is on Promised Land. After that, though, I'll agree that they're simply running out of ideas. The cover of WTTM is a little to literal for my tastes, but there are very few covers I like.
I agree that some of their best work was in Promised Land, and I generally dislike Mindcrime a bit because of the concept's progression (though the music is as they say, all hits) so my pick for best Queensryche album on the whole is Rage for Order. Which sounded pretty much as sci-fi as it goes back in the '80s they tell me. Oh how bold these bands where when they defined progressive metal and how stale and meaningless they are today. A cover album in your third decade as a band spells a sad eulogy. There will be no turning back towards greatness.
Wow, I never imagined I'd find people who would stick up for Promised Land. I listened to that record again recently and think it starts strongly, but flags a little towards the end. After that, it was, as Prong put it, a steady decline.
I defend won't defend the whole album, it runs out of steam and ends on a serious downer. The greatest hits version (full band) of "Someone Else" would've been a better end. The title track is probably their densest and darkest work, which suits my style.
Promised Land is totally frontloaded, yes. But what a front that one is.
Fact: The 'rÿche will go to Valhalla for Mindcrime - that is enough for their immortality, I cannot listen to that album enough.
But... I feel kinda bad for not checking out any other stuff, I've never bothered to check this 'Promised Land' you speak of, maybe at some juncture... but sorry, Silent Lucidity... I mean, game over...
steve57 - everything before Mindcrime is essential. The two afterwards, Empire and Promised Land, are also worth it. Everything after that: avoid. "Silent Lucidity" is an aberration on Empire - the rest of the record makes Mindcrime sleeker and more compact.
Not having listened to the EP and first record of Queensryche one loses out on a key piece on how US metal evolved. I mean, if one cares for metal history, it's absolutely essential to have a familiarity with that material.
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