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Несмотря на явную попытку сделать хитовый материал, альбом «Queensryche» с новым вокалистом Тоддом Ла Торре в действительности очень аккуратный, осторожный и напоминает больше превью или EP, чем полноценный альбом. Он словно небольшой сборник. И дело не в его короткой общей продолжительности, а в том, что песни сами по себе несколько обрывочные: лишь только ты начинаешь втягиваться в прослушивание, они заканчиваются. В этом смысле заглавная песня с альбома «Promised Land» кажется длиннее и объемней, чем весь альбом «Queensryche-2013».
Я, как и все поклонники группы, очень ждал этот альбом, и на самом деле предполагал результат примерно таким, какой он и вышел. Точнее, я предполагал два варианта: либо это будет показательное возвращение к корням, либо попытка понравиться всем и сделать что-то модное. Итог вышел смесью обоих компонентов. Но попытка сделать актуальный саунд, чтобы при этом сохранить ощущение "ретро" и узнаваемости, привело к немного игрушечному звуку. Саунд вышел ярким, но плоским. Малообъемным. Ненастоящим. Большое количество верхов и большое количество эффектов на вокале, при том, что Ла Торре и так обладает очень скрипучим тембром, заставляло меня местами морщиться и делать тише. Перемудрили. Конечно, звук на два порядка выше, чем на тех «творениях» что издал экс-вокалист группы Джефф Тэйт, но из песни слов не выкинешь – по моему глубокому ощущению, желание сделать больше всяких красивостей привело к отсутствию наполненности.
Еще один важный момент – это музыкальные самоповторы, возможно, осознанные, а возможно, и нет. В каждую песню группа наставляла ассорти из всего, что сделала: какое-нибудь шумовое претенциозное вступление, куплет, например, из «Another Rainy Night» или «Della Brown» и активный припев а-ля агрессивная и утяжеленная «Jet City Woman». А «A World Without» напоминает мне тягучесть и атональную инфернальность «Promised Land». Песни получились немного пошловатыми, чуть сумбурными, и лично для меня, парадоксально, но вполне простыми. Однако это и не плохо. Потому что, несмотря на все мои старческие брюзжания, они вышли красивыми и запоминающимися. Есть очень много заразительных мелодических моментов, хочется напеть, подпеть, подыграть, покивать головой. Этого не отнять.
Хоть в альбоме нет никакой загадки и никакого музыкального откровения и той уникальной атмосферы, которую группа несла своими классическими альбомами, релиз очень неплох. А стал он неплох, когда я абстрагировался от старого материала команды, абстрагировался от обсуждаемой тембральной схожести Ла Торре с молодым Тэйтом, которой на этом альбоме и в помине нет (Тодд больше похож здесь на Рэя Олдэра, чем на Тэйта). Так же, как в варианте с Тэйтом и его сессионщиками, я воспринимаю «Queensryche» с La Torre как новую группу. Не требую от неё ничего, не ожидаю чего-то авансом, не возлагаю на неё какую-то ответственность относительно былых заслуг. Я говорю ей спасибо за приличный альбом и просто желаю удачи. |
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Now I'm raising up my fist
And you'll pay for this
I'll take you there, where castles built will fall
Where dreams go to die and I promise you this
You thought you'd get away, but Karma made its move
The bad things that you've done, will be coming back for you
It's really sad that we're at the end, but my heart won't let me feel
No sympathy or pain for the outcome you've ensued
Now I'm standing in the crossfire
Now I'm raising up my fist
And you'll pay for this
I'll take you there, where castles built will fall
Where dreams go to die and I promise you this
As God as my witness, that your time will finally meet its end
Your dreams will burn and die and you cannot resist
Adapting model state, symmetry property possessed in varying degrees
(Type face that creates, mirror similarities)
A way to rise above the meaning, not to exist just for yourself
I'll take you there, where castles built will fall
Where dreams go to die and I promise you this
As God as my witness, that your time will finally meet its end
Your dreams will burn and die
3. Spore
[Rockenfield/La Torre/Jackson]
Executing realms paralyzing scenes
Mental satisfactions with violent abstractions
Playing in the dark cutting from a glass
No drop of blood emotions are not turning back
A prisoner of war is screaming from the wall
Nothing is alive only cold and dry
I am dwelling in the path seeking for the truth
What only I reach is just a broken soul
Take a look around, in the lost and found, help our fellow man
Screams of agony, final destiny waiting for the fall
Dreams are feeling sick dark pattern in the skin
Blind as you can be, you must retreat from the win
Crawling in your mind, damaging your sight, take me out of darkness to the light
Take a look around, in the lost and found, help our fellow man
Screams of agony, lost eternity waiting for the fall
Final destiny, in an endless sea ride the waves of faith and hope
(alternate) "fading...I'm always fading, what's left of me."
Take a look around, in the lost and found, help our fellow man
Screams of agony, lost eternity waiting for the fall
Final destiny, in an endless sea ride the waves of faith and hope
4. In This Light
[Rockenfield/Jackson]
I've walked for miles down empty roads, today
Lighting the way the fireflies, unafraid
I try to escape and learn to survive, somehow the rain changed me by surprise
I recognize from the crying sky, the road to nowhere as I follow seems to haunt me
I'll break the chains for you but only to remind me, no preservation no paradise
The pounding of the rain with thunder and its lighting
The storm's reflection like a mirror on my face
Where did it all go wrong, when will it all go right, someday
I've been searchin' for answers all my life, to rise above a jaded world that seemed to haunt me.
I'll break the chains for you but only to remind me, no preservation no paradise
5. Redemption
Taking what they will feed you
Ingesting lies they claim as true
Reflection, desperation
You pave the path that you tread
Traveling at Light Speed
Manipulation, fueled by Greed
Social Discontent and Hate,
Population regulate
[Chorus i]
Search and you’ll find the answers
To be the change that you want to see
A mind as narrow as the road I walk
Always upright but always wrong
They foresee violation of the law and suicide of remorse
[Spoken:]
Unreflecting human kind, justification for the crime
Reaction against control
The corporate stranglehold
Tear down their walls of fallacy
Be willing to surrender what you are
For what you could become
Altering your destiny
Traveling at Light Speed
Manipulation, fueled by Greed
Social Discontent and Hate,
Population regulate
Evangelize the simple minds
Tithing from the weak and blind
Arrogate through media
Instigate acedia
[Chorus II:]
Search and you’ll find the answers
To be the change that you want to see
Grant the serenity reclaiming honor and dignity
Can’t you see what’s going wrong?
Don’t you feel it growing strong?
Don’t let go, keep holding on
Working forces kneel you down
Authority and power ruling out
[Spoken:]
Mass regimentation
A phenomenon of industrialization
Reaction against control
Striving to attain a common goal
[Chorus III:]
Search and you’ll find the answers
To be the change that you want to see
Grant the serenity reclaiming honor and dignity
A mind as narrow as the road I walk
Always upright but always wrong
Working forces kneel you down
Authority and power ruling out
Always upright but always wrong
Always upright but always wrong
Always upright but always wrong
They foresee violation of the law and suicide of remorse
6. Vindication
[Wilton/La Torre/Rockenfield]
Look around, on your hi-wire down look down, it's a long way to fall
Suicide, the brink of extinct it's over now
The tables have turned on life's little game
No longer the pawns you're feeling the strain
For we are all kings with merit it brings, as we rise to the top once again
As you look to the heavens wondering where you went wrong
Seeing, not always believing the gavel of life coming down
Traces of the past flash before your eyes
Hurdle the bodies that fed you, the narcissist hungers again
Fear and control your battleground, your truth under a shroud
A forced stranglehold, just do what you're told, as we rise to the top once again
As you look to the heavens wondering where you went wrong
Seeing, not always believing the gavel of life coming down
Sometimes a man's word is all that he's got and sometimes just only a name
No more suffocation, my true vindication, ascending from all the remains
This is vindication
7. Midnight Lullaby
[Rockenfield/La Torre]
8. A World Without
[Rockenfield/La Torre/Wilton]
Voices whisper in the night
Do you hear them calling me
Reflecting faces in the light
What is real and what is fantasy
Nowhere to be found, I can't breathe again
A mother, my lover, my best friend, my best friend
My baby's staring back at me, and now a broken family
Your name now etched in stone, no place to call my home
Your heart is the amber I see in my drag
The smoke your spirit rising I breathe your love
The tickle in my throat, your way of reaching out
Perhaps the creaking of my door
The moonlight glistening the shore
Nowhere to be found, I can't breathe again
A mother, my lover, my best friend, my best friend.
My baby's staring back at me, and now a broken family
Your name now etched in stone, no place to call my home
Nowhere to be found, (I'm looking down on you)
I can't breathe again (or are you looking down on me)
A mother, my lover, my best friend, my best friend.
(are you looking down on me, I really need to know)
My baby's staring back at me, and now a broken family
Your name now etched in stone, no place to call my home
9. Don't Look Back
[Wilton/La Torre]
The ignorance of youth, the pawns of corporate greed
The raping of our mother earth, no planting of a seed
A revolution on the brink, distracted masses writhe
Another human born to kill, inherent to survive
Have you seen the vibrant shades of green
Or is your mind a blood red haze which cries and only grieves
Don't look back, I won't be standing here...I'm lost but not afraid
Marching on beyond the sun, you've gotta free your mind you are the master or the slave
The innocence and purity consumes the starving child
The mother's pain filled tears they fall, yet still she bears a smile
Don't look back, I won't be standing here...I'm lost but not afraid
Marching on beyond the sun, you've gotta free your mind you are the master or the slave
You're in a sea of deceit in a body of lies
Don't look back, I won't be standing here...I'm lost but not afraid
Marching on beyond the sun, you've gotta free your mind you are the master or the slave
Magnetize what you conceptualize because your thoughts become things
This is the Law of Attraction
10. Fallout
[Rockenfield/Jackson]
A sudden notion seizing the beginning
Cuts me like a knife, you used to be my valentine
The ocean in the sky, drifting
Swim against the tide, the flowing current in your eyes
And blind through the night while isolated, and on your island
(fall out, fall out, don't hesitate...fall out, fall out, don't hesitate)
Rising, rising from the ashes
A better life tomorrow finds, from a world beneath your blackest eyes
And fight through the night while isolated, and on your island
(fall out, fall out, don't hesitate...fall out, fall out, don't hesitate)
A revolution in disguise, mesmerized by the shadows
Flowing like a mental stream, a seamless laser...beam
A revolution in disguise, mesmerized by the shadows
Flowing like a mental stream, a seamless laser...beam
11. Open Road
[Rockenfield/La Torre/Wilton]
Shades of grey were the colors of my soul
Accepted miseries embraced for oh so long
The hands of time sweeping all my dreams away
Lost in a circumstantial maze
Moving on to another day
Searching for a brighter shade of grey
A somber silhouette displays the beauty of a dream
Until I realized your open eyes in front of me
You color my life with everything you do
And this open road only leads me back to you
Moving on to another day
Searching for a better way (a better way)
Seek and you will find the cure a blessing in disguise right before your eyes