Queensrÿche are an American progressive metal quintet (who are recently become quartet.) They were founded in 1980 in Seattle and their first hit came in 1983, with their self titled EP, which featured the single “Queen Of The Reich”, which was indicative of their then musical direction. Geoff Tate, the band’s singer, is immediately recognized as one of the leading voices in metal. In 1988 however they made the change in musical direction, releasing the concept album “Operation: Mindcrime”, which for many fans was the apex of their career. From then on they have released seven studio albums that met various levels of public and critical acclaim.

And so we reach 2009 and their tenth studio album entitled “American Soldier”. According to Tate, the album intends to give the audience a picture of war through the eyes of those who fought them. In order to achieve this, it took Tate two years of research, during which he met and spoke with veterans from World War II up to the Iraq war in order to write lyrics that would reflect the experiences and the thoughts of these people.

Improtant! The album’s lyrics bare no relation to the gung-ho style of “Glorious Burden” by Iced Earth or other related American bands. It’s lyrically closer to “Master Of Puppets”. Musically it remains progressive and in fact so progressive, that there are parts of it you could easily use as sample of what progressive metal sounds like along with snippets of Dream Theatre and Fates Warning. However, contrary to the other two “giants” of this genre, Queensrÿche do not give you the impression of virtuosos and of course the few keyboards that are hidden in the background separate it from what is usually considered the classic progressive metal sound. Also there are various points at which the band’s influences of Beatles and Pink Floyd shine through, while in others their glam metal past also sneaks in.

Now here’s the difficult part in reviewing this album. Since the objective is not to sensationalize war, how do you musically “dress” the lyrics without getting an album that will be dark and depressing? It seems that Queensrÿche have no wish to achieve this and as a result you get an album that though begins forcefully, afterwards slows down a lot leading to very sentimental ending. For fans of the darker side of Dream Theatre and Pink Floyd this won’t be a problem. For those however, who want to dip their feet into progressive metal I’m not sure I would recommend this one.