UMUR "Hear in the Now Frontier" is the 6th full-length studio album by US heavy metal/hard rock act Queensrÿche. The album was released through EMI America Records in March 1997. It would be the band´s last album on the label, as the record company went bankrupt while Queensrÿche were touring in support of "Hear in the Now Frontier", leaving the band themselves to finance the remaining part of the tour. "Hear in the Now Frontier" would be the last album to feature the original lineup as guitarist Chris DeGarmo subsequently left to pursue other interests.

While Queensrÿche had changed their sound on every album release before "Hear in the Now Frontier", the band chose a more drastic change in sound on this album, as they opted for a significantly less heavy metal oriented sound, and went with an accessible radio-friendly hard rock style. Although Peter Collins is credited as producer, the editing and mixing of the album were done by Toby Wright, who had recently worked with Alice In Chains on their 1995 eponymously titled third full-length studio album, and the latter´s involvement is clearly heard in the way "Hear in the Now Frontier" is produced. The album features an organic and warm sound production, suited for the hard rock material featured on the album, but also lacking the edge to push the most hard rocking tracks past being pleasant and accessible. In other words the sound production is professional and well sounding, but completely lacks bite.

It very much feels like Queensrÿche were domesticated here, and that they have left their heavy metal roots behind. They were never the most hard edged heavy metal act on the scene, but they had their moments on all preceding releases. "Hear in the Now Frontier" is almost completely void of anything heavy metal oriented (save for a few harder edged riffs), and sounds more like an artist like Stone Temple Pilots than anything Queensrÿche had released in the past. For at hard rock release "Hear in the Now Frontier" is actually a fairly decent album, but not many tracks stand out and featuring 14 tracks, and a full playing time of 57:42, it overstays its welcome by at least 10 minutes and maybe a little more.

So while "Hear in the Now Frontier" is not a bad quality release by any means (professional sound production, skillful execution, and professional songwriting, check..check..check), Queensrÿche´s attempt at creating a more accessible hard rock sound is not exactly a success either. They simply don´t sound convincing, and their hard rock sound is a bit too soft and uninspired, lacking the attitude and power that characterize the best hard rock releases. Too often during the playing time my attention begins to wander, and the album becomes pleasant background music, and as I´m neither on board an elevator or purchasing goods in the supermarket, that´s not really what I want from a hard rock album. Considering the inspired high quality releases which precede "Hear in the Now Frontier", it is a major disappointment that the band chose this path. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.

aglasshouse It was true that QUEENSRYCHE took a definite and different direction when they came back around from Promised Land and exploded back into the public in '97. However, they were not the Reich that people were used to. In fact, if you tried to juxtapose their masterpiece of Operation: Mind-crime and Hear In the Now Frontier, you would not hear very many similarities. This is mainly due to the band simply taking a different direction with their musical expertise. Of course most bands perform this move during their musical career in order to explore different areas of sounds, rhythms, and composition in order to see what the public liked best and what they should continue.

Many people said no to this being QUEENSRYCHE's future. It was clear that many MANY people were more comfortable with the progressive metal path of the eighties than they were of the Hard Rocking edge that they gave themselves in this 'new' Reich. Now, I've never been a particular fan of the Reich in general, mainly due to me disliking the prog metal genre for some weird reason. However, I did quite enjoy their debut self-titled EP, which I picked up from a thrift store, as well as The Warning (which was also enjoyable, though perhaps not as much). A few weeks went by as I only had these two releases under my QUEENSRYCHE belt. I stopped back at the thrift store, and to my luck, there sat Hear In The Now Frontier, sitting on the shelf. I eagerly picked it up and left.

Listening to it, I actually quite enjoy it. 'Hit The Black' has perhaps become my favorite QUEENSRYCHE song. It is clear right off the bat that this is NOT at all the old Reich. They don't do the signature IRON MAIDEN - like screaming alto/soprano vocals, and instead have a more radio-friendly voice which I honestly enjoy more than the previous vocals. 'Sign of the Times' is another winner in my book, as well as 'Anytime/Anywhere' and 'sp00l'.

This is where the album takes a fall, however. Filler. Filler is quite abundant on the album. Perhaps they just ran out of ideas but had to fill up a total of fourteen tracks in order to please the recording company, but it is quite annoying in the way of useless, boring tracks.

Overall, this album does have some neat compositions, it's different and it is actually a nice listen. This is one of those albums that isn't liked very much by the public, but is one of those releases that I would tell any metalhead to give a chance.

Go give it a listen.

siLLy puPPy Of all the possible musical directions QUEENSRYCHE could have taken on their sixth studio album HEAR IN THE NOW FRONTIER from the previous album “Promised Land,” no one could have predicted that they would leave all those experimental meanderings behind to try something completely new. Well, new to them anyways. The musical world had changed drastically in the early 90s and moderately progressive melodic metal just wasn't the cat's meow any longer. The band went the way of many 80s bands trying to sally forth into a strange new musical landscape by stripping down their sound to fit in with the explosion of grunge and alternative rock. Ironically the band who emerged from Seattle was being upstaged by a whole new breed of angry rockers from their very own turf. For this release they even managed to record the album in the home studio of Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam and then it was mixed by Toby Wright who had helped Alice In Chains make it big. The result of this radical direction change was not one that pleased a skeptical fan base who thought they knew what their favorite band sounded like, but now they weren't so sure.

Upon first listen I was as disgusted by this album as anyone else. I mean who would have thunk this? QUEENSRYCHE? Famous for rock operas and sophisti-metal doing grunge? Oh gimme a break! Well, I wrote this album off for many years but I have been giving it a spin and re-evaluating it and I have to say that it's not as bad as my first impressions made it out to be. True, it will hardly go down as their crowning achievement but once again they do manage to deliver extremely well written melodic performances albeit stripped down. They definitely prove here that they have the basic skills of songwriting down pat and no further embellishment is necessary. OK, point well taken. I can get on board with their bold and brash ability to constantly reinvent themselves. I love bands that do just that. So what's holding me back from liking this more?

I have to say I think the problem stems not from the fact that they did a complete left turn to create a new sound. That is not the issue here at all. I think the problem lies in the fact that they are simply overqualified as musicians to be doing this kind of less demanding stuff. Geoff Tate's operatic vocal ability over the simpler riffing and song structure is as surreal as the ear-covered desolate landscape gracing the album cover and liner notes. This album is tantamount to the London Symphony Orchestra playing nursery rhymes at a kid's birthday party or Yes doing a full performance of “Close To The Edge” only reggae style at a flea market. There are actually a few songs here I really like. I totally dig “Sign Of The Times,” “Hit The Black,” “Anytime / Anywhere” and “spOOL.” No individual tracks are bad but the album is a bit samey and lacks enough diverse elements to justify the nearly 60 minute experience. It's true that if this WAS a Pearl Jam or Nivana album, it would be fantastic but this is QUEENSRYCHE. Everybody expected more. OK. I'm down with experimentation and all and I give this one a passing grade, it's just not an album I find myself wanting to hear very often. I always go back to the albums that came before.

Kingcrimsonprog Hear In The Now Frontier is the sixth full-length studio album by the Seattle based Progressive Metal Queensrÿche, it was recorded in Stone Gossard’s home studio, produced by Toby Wright and released in 1997. With every passing album from the beginning of their career up until the time when this was released, Queensrÿche had reinvented their sound every time, and Hear In The Now Frontier takes a similarly large change in direction, crossing over into Alternative-Rock territory.

The sound of the album isn’t so much the sound of Prog-Metal in the Dream Theatre, Blind Guardian and Fates Warning sense; but rather a stripped-down Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and The Beatles inspired 90s-Alt sound with lots of jangly acoustic guitar and occasional down-tuned electric riffs.

Some fans took this to be a sort of betrayal or selling out, but in all honesty looking back from now it isn’t really any different from all of their huge stylistic changes before this album’s release and its just furthering the band’s mission to never make the same record twice.

In my opinion, this album isn’t the monstrous waste of space that it sometimes gets made out to be; tracks like ‘Saved’ ‘Reach’ ‘Spool’ and the single ‘Sign Of The Times’ all have some memorable moments. I actually like at least half of the album and don’t exactly dislike the other half in any legitimate way.

Ultimately, that just isn’t enough however and so this just isn’t all that amazing an album all things considered. There aren’t tonnes and tonnes of memorable riffs, the lyrics aren’t the sort of thing that stick in your head for days, the guitar solos aren’t as impressive as in the past and some of the material is just a little too forgettable. Luckily Geoff Tate’s voice is still very enjoyable, but then again he doesn’t take it to as impressive heights as he once did.

To be fair, even if this had have been the best Alternative album ever made, some people would still hate it just because the band changed to cash-in on the ‘in’ thing of the time. That thing is though, Hear In The Now Frontier isn’t the best alternative album ever made, it is just an average album. Its OK but it isn’t perfect, it isn’t something you’ll want to play in its entirety all that often and it definitely shouldn’t be the first Queensrÿche album that you buy unless you are a massive fan of 1990s Alternative Music and hate Prog or Metal.

Overall; if you hate change then avoid it at all costs, but if you can actually accept that the sound of the album isn’t all that Progressive or all that Metal, Hear In The Now Frontier is an OK addition to your collection that will deliver you a few more good songs to enjoy.

Time Signature Sign of the times...

Genre: grunge/alt. rock/metal

After the brilliant hardrockers "Operation: Mindcrime" and "Empire" and the different, but almost as brilliant "The Promised Land", Queensrÿche decide to change their style again on "Hear in the Now Frontier", and - well, this album just does not work at all for me.

This is Queensrÿche attempting to play 90s alt rock, something which a lot of other bands did much better back then. Well nigh the most boring Queensrÿche album I have ever heard, and I found it kind of sad that a band like Queensrÿche actually tried to follow the mainstream at the time.

But nice try, of course, and there are a couple of decent songs on this album, nonetheless, like 'The Sign of the Times', 'Hit the Black' and 'sp00l'.