The Nubian queen over at Enjoy & Exciting weighed in on Queensrÿche the other day. It seems that she bought their new "Operation Mindcrime II" and hadn't fully listened to it.
Well, I have and it's not bad. Did they really need to write a sequel? No. But it does rock in places, the songwriting is solid, and the story is coherent - a follow-up rather than a track-by-track recasting. It's a revenge fantasy that picks up after Nikki, the junkie hitman protagonist in the story, is freed from prison after eighteen years and sets out immediately to kill Dr. X, the shadowy head of the pharmaceutical company that controlled Nikki in "Mindcrime: I". It makes a nice complement to the original, both sonically and lyrically with its social and political commentary. But don't compare it to "OM: I" even though that might be next to impossible, the albums are made in two different eras. And if anyone couldn't figure out after eighteen years that Sister Mary committed suicide in the original "Mindcrime" (hope I didn't spoil this secret for anyone) you deserve to be let down.
In this post nu-metal musical landscape it's so refreshing to hear guitars tuned to "a" and solos. Solos, I tell ya.
Thje best part of "Mindcrime: II" is the voice of Dr. X: Ronnie James Dio. HIs vocals on this album possibly mark the first time in Dio's adult life where he isn't singing about dragons, rainbows, or majicks.
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