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Operation: Mindcrime - Resurrection

Published October 05 2016


*
=Staff's pick

Resurrection
When All Falls Away
A Moment In Time
Through The Noise
Left For Dead*
Miles Away
Healing My Wounds
The Fight
Taking On The World
Invincible
A Smear Campaign
Which Side You're On
Into The Hands Of The World
Live From My Machine

Genre Progressive Hard Rock
See review
Vocals
Tracks 14
-
Guitar
Running time 65 Min.
-
Guitar
Label Frontiers Music
-
Bass
Release September 23, 2016
-
Drums
Country USA
-
Keyboard
Producer ---
Similar artists ---

Band lineup: Geoff Tate (vocals, keyboards, saxophone), Kelly Gray (guitars, vocals), Scott Moughton (guitars, vocals), John Moyer (bass), Randy Gane (keyboards), Simon Wright (drums) and Brian Tichy (drums). Guest appearances by: Dave Ellefson (bass), Mark Daily (vocals), Scott Mercado (drums), Nick Greatrex (guitars), Blaze Bayley (vocals) and Tim "Ripper" Owens (vocals).

Resurrection is part 2 out of a total of 3 in Geoff Tate's new music series. This record starts up with 4 different intros and it's not until around the 6-minute mark that this thing really begins. The further this vocalist walks away from the origin of his former band Queensrÿche and the more he travels across his own artistic expeditions, the less this album rocks. When he kind of stays in the veins of older Queensrÿche stuff, both musically and song melody-wise, then there are times where this effort come to a higher level.

His strive for making a new record as popular as the one that now carries this particular band's name is pretty obvious, but since it's damn near impossible to re-create what you've once been well-known for before, Tate will without a doubt, as long as he is looking to that record for inspiration, find himself in a dead end street without a way back. It's not that he is trying to make a carbon copy of that record of course, since he definitely puts his new style of music to this record, but it's more in quite a lot of the arrangements and the whole vibe that the connection gets strongly apparent.

Occasionally I sense a double-edged sword regarding the quality of what Tate wants to attain through his artistic freedom. Some songs feature saxophones and even if I think that this element is kind of good in some odd way, it's hardly what fits the songs the best, as it makes the music all of sudden sound like some theme to a 70's low budget TV-series and unfortunately every time I now hear that specific instrument in the songs I can't help but think about the looks and the clothes people wore in that decade.

Although Tate doesn't really put himself to the test vocally with exhaustive exertions, his voice, in comparison to other singers and not his own brilliant past efforts, does the job fairly well in a studio environment. Resurrection, I would say, is one step finer than the last record, The Key, but the lack of really striking song material is still evident. I think that the music gets in a way unnecessarily complicated and contrived even if it's actually not so complex to begin with. It's just that it's taking some sharp bends just in order to come out different and I simply refuse to get mislead by stuff like that.

See also review of: The New Reality , The Key

Performance
Originality
Production
Vocals
Songwriting

7

5

6

6

5

 
Summary



5 chalices of 10 - Tobbe


Related links:

www.operationmindcrime.com
www.facebook.com/operationmindcrimeband