Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The Verdict is yours, the conclusion of years of following a particular band or genre is at the end of it all, down to the listener and how they respond to the memories and how the artist has progressed, how the original shape has morphed and adapted to the changes to which Time throws out like a snare, a trap in to which to fall, or to avoid, either being a godsend, both being the point of experience, and one to which some bands are negligent of observing, one that  Queensryche across their own time have been successful of overpowering and conquering; albeit it to the cost of personnel and their once distinctive sound over the years.

The Verdict, an easy one to reach when it comes to Queensyche, even after all this time, and the evidence laid out from the band is one that always suggest their ability to seek out the innocent and the guilty and place them squarely at the scene of the crimes, to lock them away until they are ready to come out, blinking at the sky and then rage, not for order but against the contempt and condescension, the accusations and sneers of disrespect, levelled at the band from voices that have no reason to be heard, that bleated air that sits with a judgemental smirk and the desire to knock all that the band have achieved.

Make no mistake, Queensryche have achieved a great deal, and this in a period in which is still reeling in the era of post Geoff Tate, and yet even with this in mind, the third album with Todd La Torre at the helm stuns the court, there is no surprise witness to testify at the final moment, just the unsolicited truth of the occasion; a truth willing to lay out all that it knows and understands to bring this particular drama to the fans and thrill with the outcome.

A different framing perhaps, evolution that had to come, in the same way in which pushed the band on when Chris DeGarmo initially departed after Hear In The Now Frontier, but as songs such as Man The Machine, Inside Out, Propaganda Fashion, Bent and Launder The Conscience all attest under scrutiny and oath, there is nothing that can be appealed against, this is after all a result that will carry a majority, a show of hands that reaches the right decision quickly that The Verdict is all that matters in the end, as long as it has been reached with propriety and honour.

Ian D. Hall