The Good
The cover of Pink Floyd’s “Welcome To The Machine” is a
nice opening track for the disc and was the highlighted track during their
tour last summer. The song is recast in such a manner that it feels like
the opening soundtrack to a stylish noir thriller and it works superbly.
The live version of U2’s “Bullet The Blue Sky” is a song I’ve
been hearing and seeing performed for a few years and a lot of the time I come
away less than impressed. The version on this disc however came out well done.
I wish the band knew where it had been recorded though.
“Red Rain” (Peter Gabriel) was fantastic, and I thought the band
did a good job with “Almost Cut My Hair” and “For What It’s
Worth”. I found the song “Odissea” to be an interesting choice
of cover material to be on the disc. The song is entirely in the Italian language,
quite the accomplishment considering singer Geoff Tate doesn’t actually
speak the language. Oh, and “Neon Knights” was killer.
The standout track for me though was the souped-up rocker version of the Jesus
Christ Superstar song “Heaven On Their Minds.” The track is outstanding
almost beyond words. Guitarist Mike Stone commented in the liner notes that he’d
always wanted to hear a rock version of the song and now he can.
The Bad
It wasn’t that either song was actually bad, but I didn’t really
enjoy the vocals for “Synchronicity II” or “Innuendo”.
In the case of the former, I found the delivery to be rather flat considering
the urgency that Sting delivered the vocals in the original version. As
for the latter track, I think Geoff Tate is an incredible singer, but there
is just something about Freddie Mercury’s vocal work that no one
can truly properly capture.
The one song I flat out didn’t like was “For The Love Of Money” but
then again, I’ve never really liked that song in any of various forms.
The Verdict
A covers project is usually the least likely project I want to hear about
a band releasing. I’ve always been of the opinion if I want to hear
versions of the songs, I’ll stick with the originals.
Despite my overall enjoyment of this album, that opinion still remains mostly
intact. However, the Queensryche camp certainly went above and beyond the call
of duty in crafting their versions of these classic works. It is a job well done
and worthy of praise and your listening time.
QUEENSRYCHE
