Commander PK Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Fantastic album from the Ryche. Even without DeGarmo, I would say they have put together an album that rivals Operation Mindcrime. Great stuff. They are streaming the album live at VH1 Classic. Retail release tommorrow. http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/queensryche/2397012/album.jhtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GibbsFactor Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Cool, have to let my brother know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander PK Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Bump The album has been out for a couple weeks now, anybody else pick it up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unsonny Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 GREAT ALBUM indeed!!11 Ryche returns from the muckymuck of MC2 @ 30,000 Feet is my fav Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skinsfan1311 Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 GREAT ALBUM indeed!!11Ryche returns from the muckymuck of MC2 @ 30,000 Feet is my fav How kick ass is it? How would you rate it compared to say.....MC1, Rage for the Order, or Empire? The reason for asking is that I'm gun-shy after the MC2 debacle. I was so pumped for MC2 when it came out, that I downloaded the entire album. That was the 2nd most disappointed that I've ever been with an albums release. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unsonny Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 How kick ass is it? How would you rate it compared to say.....MC1, Rage for the Order, or Empire? The reason for asking is that I'm gun-shy after the MC2 debacle. I was so pumped for MC2 when it came out, that I downloaded the entire album. That was the 2nd most disappointed that I've ever been with an albums release. Thanks! :point2skypick it up!!!11...its a strong 4th to those albums......but you failed to mention the best ever - The Warning .......American Soldier - its a great album....no throw away songs (plus its dark themed and heavy at times) MC2 is right there with HITNF...IMO:doh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IONTOP Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Is this the CD that has "If I were king" on it? I tune into the Time Warner music channels and hear that song in the rotation, it's a good one and the first song of theirs I've listened to... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skinsfan1311 Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 :point2skypick it up!!!11...its a strong 4th to those albums......but you failed to mention the best ever - The Warning.......American Soldier - its a great album....no throw away songs (plus its dark themed and heavy at times) MC2 is right there with HITNF...IMO:doh: "dark themed and heavy"?? Perfect! :evilg: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unsonny Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Is this the CD that has "If I were king" on it? I tune into the Time Warner music channels and hear that song in the rotation, it's a good one and the first song of theirs I've listened to... and to me thats the 6th best song on the CD check out what http://www.military.com/ has to say about the album http://www.military.com/entertainment/music/music-news/queenryches-american-soldier-salute?wh=wh In this era of iTunes and YouTube the notion of a concept album has been all but killed as a function of digital technologies and the Internet. Gone are the days of "Tommy" and "The Wall" when a listener would drop the needle and let an album to play all the way through. (The LP format demanded it as much as facilitated it. A scratch was forever.) Now music fans browse their favorite e-commerce sites and choose what tracks to download based on 30-second snippets. Not that I'm judging, of course. I'm as guilty as the next Web surfer. I have hundreds of albums, cassette tapes, and CDs strewn across my home office, but I seldom, if ever, download complete albums. This phenomenon isn't lost on the minds that create the music. The market drives artist activity and resultantly few of them think in terms of relating dimensions of a single story across an album's tracks. But all is not lost for those valiant holdouts who still have attention spans that last longer than, say, four minutes and twenty seconds. Queensryche's latest effort, "American Soldier," is a concept album in the tradition of the greats -- one that merits end-to-end consideration. What Jerry Lewis used to say about his telethon holds true for "American Soldier": "If you miss a little you miss a lot." The album opens with the strident voice of every squad leader yelling, "On your feet!" signaling that the band has stepped off the line of departure wearing a warfighter's boots. The elements of combat inform songs like "Hundred Mile Stare," "If I Were King" (also the album's first video, which had its world premiere at Military.com), and "The Killer." Voices of real vets weave in and out of the tunes, giving the narrative a transcendent company-street cred. Aviators are also brought into the battle with the slow build of "At 30,000 feet." Watch the "If I Were King" music video on Military.com "American Soldier" also tackles themes of war beyond the fighting. "Remember Me" deals with couples who deal with the pitfalls and pressures of getting married right before a war rotation. (Key lyric: "I don't know what the future holds, I'm sorry if this seems too cold; a man conflicted in his head, makes poor choices, regrets the words he says." But the subject sums up his thoughts with "All I want from you is for you to tell me that you miss me.") "Home Again" opens with a voice that states, "It's very hard to keep a family together when you're halfway across the world. A lot of us are dads; a lot of us are husbands, and we're just counting the days to get home." From there the song morphs into a poignant exchange between father and daughter. (The girl singing is actually lead singer Geoff Tate's daughter.) My main concern when I first heard about this project was the "Soldiers as victims" trap that these sorts of projects (whether albums, films, or books) too often fall into. Too often the only takeaway from the military experience is trauma, heartache, and personal devastation. (I generally think of Metallica's "One" as the perfect cartoon-ish example of this phenomenon.) But "American Soldier" deftly avoids this trap, primarily because Tate developed the concept by letting servicemembers, including his father, and families tell their stories without clouding the message with his own preconceived notion. In fact, in a recent podcast interview at Military.com, when I asked Tate what he learned about the military by virtue of putting the album together, he said, "I learned I knew nothing going into this." The album isn't a recruiting poster, necessarily, but it's an honest reading of what happens when brave Americans are sent to war. Listen to an interview with Queensryche's Geoff Tate From a musical point of view "American Soldier" is well-produced, aptly complex, and hook-laden. My acid test of a good album has always been whether or not it gets better with each listening, and "American Soldier" does. There are no throw-aways on this one, but for me the standout tracks (read "download now") are "Hundred Mile Stare," "If I Were King," "Remember Me," and "Home Again." So walk a few clicks in the boots of "American Soldier" and rediscover the concept album. Along the journey through war you might recognize yourself or someone close to you. You might even learn something. And, of equal importance considering the medium, you will rock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Mike Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Sorry to be the spoilsport but... I'm a huge fan of their early work and I've seen them live. But somewhere along the line they went off track and I'm sorry but I don't think they have gotten the magic back. I heard the title track and I couldn't stand it. It just sounded like a bunch of pretentious crap to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Unsonny is going to kill me because I still haven't picked this up yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unsonny Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Unsonny is going to kill me because I still haven't picked this up yet. .........:saber: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 .........:saber: Ummm....... :idea: I'm holding off so I have some new jams on the drive up for the DDP. Yeah. That's it. That's the ticket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK Posted April 19, 2009 Share Posted April 19, 2009 OK. I picked it up last night. Knowing it was a concept album going into it & not expecting a Ryche rock album all I have to say is Oh...my....gawd! After just the first listen I'm putting this one up there with Promised Land as far as its musically darkness. Speaking of PL, I liked how Tate slipped "Promised Land" into one of the lyrics. The voice overs, the helicopters in the background, hell all of the little things added to the background really make it sound like a soundtrack to an epic war movie. Tate's daughter singing with him on one of the last tracks was a really cool touch as it helped to tell that story of father gone to war & children waiting at home for him to get back. There seem to be a lot of layers, musically, to American Soldier & that's a good thing. **** man. I wish I had picked this up sooner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander PK Posted April 19, 2009 Author Share Posted April 19, 2009 You must listen to Painkiller, he knows good. :laugh: **** man. I wish I had picked this up sooner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK Posted April 19, 2009 Share Posted April 19, 2009 Well PK, whatcha know about the new Tesla that I saw in the store last night but didn't pick up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander PK Posted April 19, 2009 Author Share Posted April 19, 2009 Honestly, I can't say much about the new Tesla. I owned cassette versions of "Mechanical Resonance" and "The Great Radio Controversy" back in the day, but I haven't really kept up with them. I can tell you that one of my favorite work out songs is still "Cumin' atcha live" I can tell you the new Whitesnake: "Good to be Bad" is awesome. Buy that one if you haven't had a chance. Forget the glam style of the late 80's from them, (although I still jam out to 1987) this album is just straight ahead heavy blues rock. Great Stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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