Artist: Queensryche
Label: EMI
Release Date: 1994
Rating: 5 Skulls
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Title: Promised Land Artist: Queensryche Label: EMI Release Date: 1994
Rating: 5 Skulls |
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Death's Review:
What lies beyond the Promised Land? If you are thinking Hear in the Now Frontier, you are being too literal. I mean for you consider the question in a grander, more philosophical sense for a moment. What if you were to actually achieve your lifelong goal? Then what would you do? What if you were to devote your life to a quest which you one day, almost randomly, finally realize. What would you do next? What if a blind pursuit of ambition had masked the depth of your uncertainty regarding your ultimate destination? What if the thrill was in the pursuit? Perhaps the setting out to achieve something was the endgame in and of itself.But consider for a moment that, upon arriving at your destination you discover that what you thought was so great was actually only kinda mediocre? Or was untrue. Or was just as suddenly taken away from you. If that were the case, and the victory was indeed hollow, would it crush you? Would you be depressed? Or could you simply move on?
Perhaps you'd feel betrayed by your ambition? So many people use ambition as an opiate. Ambition, you see, is borne of restlessness. An aspiration to new heights. The more strength that is required to climb to such heights, the more "un-content" the aspirant needs to be about current status quo to see the mission through. The thought behind the concept of "ambition" is that some day you might get to this place, this magic place, over the proverbial rainbow, this place that you've wanted to be in for so long... - if you could just get to the Promised Land, things would be what they were always supposed to be in the best of your dreams. Keep thinking that, and you just might be able to put your head down and take what life throws at you long enough to actually get to some reasonable facsimile of where you've always wanted to be. That is the role of ambition. At least that's my theory.
In 1990, after years of critical acclaim, Queensryche commercially exploded with the Empire record going double platinum and MTV playing "Silent Lucidity" every hour. Yet by the time their next album, Promised Land, was ready, grunge had hit. Metal was dead, alternative rock was king. Queensryche had worked so hard for their deserved success, and suddenly the whole foundation of their struggle (the commercial viability of mainstream heavy metal music) was crumbling around them.
And what emerged was Promised Land, a much darker and infinitely more artistically inspired record than Empire which is one of Queensryche's finest hours (along with The Warning and Rage for Order, as well as the generally- preferred Operation:Mindcrime). There is an existential longing which permeates every note of this album, both lyrically and aurally. These are the sounds of a band that was aching to grow and rediscover a more evolved identity - as suddenly as the band was finally able to capitalize on its efforts to cultivate the old one. Lonely saxophone solos linger near Roger Waters-worthy lyrical questioning, yet this is still undeniably Queensryche's music and Queensryche's sound. The band's trademark commercial hooks are everywhere. Only on this record, they primarily appear in a minor key.
Promised Land is one of the most criminally underrated albums of all-time. Consider it in the context from which it emerged: it is the product of a proud and growing band who still had something to say and still had a desire to take its music in adventurous directions, on the very next album after cashing in big time with radio and video success. Listen to "I am I", "Promised Land', and "Someone Else?" loud on a great stereo when you are alone one day, right in a row. Each track entirely different. Each track feeling the same way. That is the mark of a brilliant record.
"Damaged," "Lady Jane" and "Disconnected" and "Bridge" all haunt too, each in their own inspired way. Yet all are merely stops along the way on the road to the Promised Land - a darkly depressing, thematically-connected masterpiece which, despite its existential angst and cynicism, is not the anti-"Take Hold of the Flame." With Promised Land, Queensryche instead continued to inspire, probably just when I least expected it from them.
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