Memorably described as ‘The Thinking Fan’s Metal Band’, Queensrÿche rose above the pack in the 1980s to deliver music that was as intelligent and elegant as it was hard-hitting. At their peak in the late 80s and early 90s, their forward-looking albums bridged the gap between state-of-the-art metal and the progressive metal movement that would soon emerge in their wake. The Seattle five-piece’s story began in 1981, when singer Geoff Tate, guitarists Chris DeGarmo and Michael Wilton, bassist Eddie Jackson and drummer Scott Rockenfield recorded a four-track demo under the name The Mob.
When they discovered the existence of another band with the same monicker, they opted to rechristen themselves Queensrÿche, after a track on the demo, . Those four demo tracks appeared on the band’s self-titled debut EP, released in 1983 via Seattle independent label 206 Records. The EP generated a huge buzz, bagging them a deal with major label EMI-America, who put out their full-length debut album, (1984) and the boundary-pushing (1986).
But it was 1988‘s masterful concept album that gave Queensrÿche their long-overdue breakthrough, selling more than a million copies in the US. A lot was riding on the follow-up, a record that would eventually be titled . “Chris [DeGarmo] and I had agreed from the early days that we’d alternate between a concept album and a collection of unconnected songs,” says Geoff Tate.
“So, we’d done , now it was time for something else. However, .