Queensrÿche
Rage For Order

Hands forward: this will be the worst DePagina you've ever read. DeBaseriota warned..

DePreface:

This site is widely frequented by insipid DeCerebrati D.O.C. (I am speaking of myself, of course) who express their onanistic estroversions of a musical-interior-ocular nature, and that everything takes on traits that are grotesque, if not tending to daily heresy, I had a good reason too, but in this case (Dear, that you might wonder; “what the hell is he saying/wanting, this one”) it is about unacceptable and blasphemous blasphemy. Indeed.

I say: but do we (even moderately) realize? Do we continue like this, doing ourselves harm? No way! Oh heck! Damn! By golly! (Practically) Damn!

In the phantasmagoric DeDatabase is missing (!!!) the de-review of the archaically fascinating “Rage For Order” by Queensryche: outrageous! Indeed!

But you tell me if it’s the case that a shriveled, washed-out, sheet-metal-destroying birdbrain has to fill such an unfortunate gap concerning one of the most magnificent hard’n’heavy works coined in the second pre-neomillennial decade (namely 1986). Indeed.

Scattered memories: in fact, I don’t feel like writing a true DeReview.

I remember exactly, as if it had been pronounced just a few hours ago, the acne-ridden disrespectful  question posed when placing the crackling needle of the record player into the microsolchi of such vinyl: “what is this crap?”: now, naturally, I wouldn’t express myself with such execrable terms anymore; those were times when the musical neuron mostly demanded the easy-to-understand riff: in this sense, the formidable “Condition Critical” by Quiet Riot, “Stay Hungry” by Twisted Sister and, why not, “The Ultimate Sin” by good Ozzy Osbourne, were very popular within the limited domestic walls under this perspective.

The only excerpt, to be honest, that I didn’t mind a little was the percussively alien (for the standards of the time) and finely curated “Neue Regel” and then.. a little bit also that other strange one .. “Gonna Get Close To You”: for the rest, in practice, there wasn’t a fragment that captured my attentive ear .. very few grated guitars with which to grab the broom of the house à la invisible guitar, no refrain to sing out loud, no para-bantering drum: everything sounded too feeble to my ears as well as stubborn-nonche-agnostic, to put it Trap's way.

The fact is that put it today, put it tomorrow (and the day after tomorrow too), perhaps more out of self-constraint than anything else (back then, me and my friends didn’t own tons of records to listen to: file-sharing wasn’t even speculated in science fiction books..), on the plate of the crackling home turntable, turn after turn, I began to gradually taste and appreciate first the more hard edges (which I obviously preferred): the biting “Surgical Strike” soon entered into persistent heavy rotation, shortly followed by the freeze-dried but mighty “Screaming In Digital”.. in short, this record began (even if) to moderately please me: absolutely; but better not to say it around... you never know: friends were quick at playing pranks: those rogues.

Almost simultaneously, the much-anticipated “Quiet Riot III” (a half-flop although it pained us to admit it) came out and that other pseudo-modernist cover of Iron Maiden’s “Somewhere in Time” which, as far as I'm concerned, were soon shelved in favor of this quirky record by the five Queensryche, elegantly clad in neo-renaissance attire.

So all in all, listen after listen, I finally made mine the intricate, never banal, harmonic-guitar interplays of the soaring DeGarmo/Wilton duo, the full-bodied, sometimes stentorian, but as needed delicate vocals of the young vintage Tate, the pulsatingly modern bass of Eddie Jackson and finally, not least in order of importance, the admirably diversified percussive textures of good Scott Rockenfield: the result is that over twenty years later, I remember perfectly each vocal and instrumental passage: I’m practically due for a mental lock-up.

Conclusion: I retreat to my quarters.

In order not to bore any further and more than I have already done, I conclude by witnessing that I consider “Rage For Order”, also by virtue of the exquisitely refined production by Neil Kernon (currently quite in vogue among Death Metal bands!!), to be the bearer of an impressive progression from its predecessor "The Warning", the maximum qualitative peak reached by the Seattle band in terms of intense visionary capacity, ingenuity, imagination, foresight both from the sound perspective and from the bold solutions undertaken within this enduring work.

In retrospect, I've wondered if the Ryche had persevered in this direction, instead of returning to the hard’n’heavy fold of the much acclaimed (not at all disagreeable, mind you) “Operation Mindcrime” (on one hand the overwhelming interpretative grandeur - “Suite Sister Mary” we all remember - on the other a tangible normalization in the overall sound), what they might have potentially been able to offer and outline.

And instead.