QUEENSRŸCHE — Hear In The Now Frontier (review)

QUEENSRŸCHE — Hear In The Now Frontier album cover Album · 1997 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
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.
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aglasshouse wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I don't think this album is alt rock, actually. If anything, It's progressive hard rock.
Unitron wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Good review, I find this to be Queensyche's best post-Promised Land album. I think it's a very solid alt rock/hard rock album.

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