Queensryche may have looked
like a bunch of Poodle rock boys (remember
this album their fourth was released in
1988) but nothing could be further from
reality. Long dubbed, the thinking mans
heavy metal band, they somehow manage
to fall between a lot of Kennels, and
therefore very difficult to classify,
does somewhere between Metallica and Rush
help? No I didn’t think so.
Operation: Mind Crime is arguably Queensryches
best release, which garnered the band
much needed critical and public success
(although mainly in their native America).
The experiment of releasing a concept
album worked very well, a complicated
story line, which sometimes needs to be
held together by the shorter songs, nonetheless
it was a step in the right direction after
some of the more outrageous story lines
in previous concept albums by other artists.
Here a disillusioned entrepreneur gets
fed up with the Regan era U.S. Government
and joins an underworld terrorist organization
determined to rid itself of all political
scumbags, during his time with them he
develops a relationship with a woman and
gets involved in the terrorist drug culture,
and is then told by the movement, that
his alignment with the women is threatening
the structure of the underground unit,
so he has to kill her, he does so, following
orders blindly, and then realizes what
he has become, where upon his world falls
apart completely.
The music on the album would stand up
on its own, without any story, the twin
lead guitar work is superb, whilst Geoff
Tate’s vocals reveal his earlier operatic
training. The songs range from the out
and out thrash of “Revolution Calling”
and the “Needle Lies”, to the biting and
highly cynical “I Don’t Believe In Love”,
the albums central and most powerful song
in performance, musicianship, sense of
style, and drama is also the album’s longest
song clocking in at over 10 minutes “Suite
Sister Mary” opening with the spoken words
“Kill her, that’s all you have to do”
“Kill Mary” “She’s a risk, and get the
priest as well”. You know you in few a
rough ride from that moment. Geoff Tate
is joined on vocals by Pamela Moore who
plays the unfortunate Sister Mary. In
its self “Suite Sister Mary” is one of
the most exceptional one song stories
ever written (alongside Mott the Hoople’s
satire on the music business “Marionette”).
Unfortunately Queensryche always struggled
after this to match their masterpiece,
and never reached the heights of superstardom
that you would of imagined at this point,
and were eventually overtaken in the prog
metal championship by counter parts “Dream
Theatre”, but thereby hangs another tail.
This album still stands up today as a
classic of its genre.
Pawed by Mott The Dog
Remastered by Ella Crew
E-mail: review@mott-the-dog.com
