Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For a singer that has made a career of citing his desire to push musical boundaries and stating that he dislikes "heavy metal," Geoff Tate has done himself and the entire Queensryche fan base a huge disservice with Frequency Unknown. Slapped together in just a couple months time, "F.U." is a throwaway album with little substance. Written primarily by Tate and producer Jason Slater, the album features a variety of generic metal guitar riffs, uninspiring vocal melodies, predictable and at times juvenile lyrics and downright poor performances by some of the musicians on the record. The first single, "Cold," is probably the best cut of the bunch, but marred by a guitar solo that really sticks out as something meant for a different song. Other tunes such as "Running Backwards," "In the Hands of God," and "Everything" show promise, but are ruined by lackluster vocal performances by Tate and spotty production. Released under the name of "Queensryche," Frequency Unknown is a bit misleading. None of the founding members of the band appear on it. Instead, it's just Tate (the band's original singer that was fired by his former bandmates in 2012) and a bunch of hired guns. The result is clunky at best. Instead of capturing a particular vibe or sound, Frequency Unknown sounds like a compilation album of whatever songs Slater and some others had lying around for Tate to sing over. It's just not a very good organic listening experience. Frequency Unknown also features a number of Queensryche's classic hits re-recorded by Tate and a number of backup singers and various musicians. The re-recordings sound flat and contrived, and Tate admitted in various interviews when promoting the record that he did it primarily for the money -- yes, you read that right. Tate had no artistic reasons for doing the re-recordings. He did it for the cash. It shows. The re-records are an abomination and an insult to the original songwriters and performers and the fans. Do yourselves a huge favor. Sample this record. Listen to it fully, legally, before buying. I'm not going to rate this as a "1," because frankly, there are some quality bits and pieces of music on here. It's not all out trash (the re-records are, however). But it's absolutely not Queensryche and the songs are marred by a huge lack of quality control. Buyer beware.