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Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime by Mott the Dog ***** 5 Stars Rating Queensryche may have looked like a bunch of Poodle rock boys (remember this album, their fourth, was released in 1988) but nothing could be further from reality. Long dubbed the thinking man’s heavy metal band, they somehow manage to fall between a lot of kennels, and are therefore very difficult to classify. Does somewhere between Metallica and Rush help? No, I didn’t think so. Operation: Mindcrime is arguably Queensryche’s best release, which garnered the band much needed critical and public success (although mainly in their native America). The experiment of releasing a concept album worked very well. With a complicated story line, which sometimes needs to be held together by the shorter songs, nonetheless it was a step in the right direction after some of the more outrageous storylines in previous concept albums by other artists. Here a disillusioned entrepreneur gets fed up with the Regan era, U.S. Government and joins an underworld terrorist organization determined to rid itself of all political scumbags. During his time with them he develops a relationship with a woman and gets involved in the terrorist drug culture, and is then told by the movement that his alignment with the women is threatening the structure of the underground unit, so he has to kill her; he does so, following orders blindly, and then realizes what he has become, where upon his world falls apart completely. The music on the album would stand up on its own, without any story. The twin lead guitar work is superb, whilst Geoff Tate’s vocals reveal his earlier operatic training. The songs range from the out & out thrash of “Revolution Calling” & the “Needle Lies”, to the biting & highly cynical “I Don’t Believe In Love”. The album’s central & most powerful song in performance, musicianship, sense of style, and drama is also the album’s longest song clocking in at over 10 minutes: “Suite Sister Mary” opening with the spoken words “Kill her, that’s all you have to do” “Kill Mary” “She’s a risk, and get the priest as well”. You know you’re in for a rough ride from that moment. Geoff Tate is joined on vocals by Pamela Moore who plays the unfortunate Sister Mary. In itself, “Suite Sister Mary” is one of the most exceptional one song stories ever written (alongside Mott the Hoople’s satire on the music business “Marionette”). Unfortunately, Queensryche always struggled after this to match their masterpiece, and never reached the heights of superstardom that you would of imagined at this point, and were eventually overtaken in the prog metal championship by counterparts “Dream Theatre”, but thereby hangs another tail. This album still stands up today as a classic of its genre. Geoff Tate - Vocals, Keyboards, Whistles and Blurbs Track Listing 1. I Remember Now
By Poppy Set on the isle of Jersey in the English Channel in 1945, “The Others” stars Nicole Kidman as Grace, who lives with her two children in a dark, dank Victorian mansion while her husband is off fighting in World War II. Her children are ill, and must be kept in almost total darkness. The longer she stays, the more she begins to suspect something strange is going on. The servants have all mysteriously disappeared but are almost immediately replaced by three strangers who just happen by, looking for work. While showing them around, Grace emphasizes her peculiar house rules: All the curtains must be drawn whenever her children are in the vicinity, and, upon entering a room, one must close the door before opening another. Her reasoning becomes clear when she introduces Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), for they are photosensitive and will break out in life-threatening hives when exposed to light any stronger than candlelight. Anne swears she’s met a boy named Victor who lives there with his parents and has encountered a blind witch with smelly breath. Grace punishes her for days, making her read incessantly out of the Bible, before she hears footsteps and voices herself and becomes convinced Anne hasn’t just been telling ghost stories to scare her brother. Fearful and uptight, Kidman as Grace is an exposed, raw nerve on the verge of what - Crippling grief? Over-the-edge insanity? Brilliant performance. “The Others” is like an old Hitchcock movie keeping
you guessing and on the edge of your seat right up to the end. I am not a
lover of dark movies but in this one it works. Directed by Alejandro Amenabar Cast: Nicole Kidman as Grace
Updated every Friday Updated by
Chinnaporn Sungwanlek, assisted by Boonsiri Suansuk. |
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This recipe book is in its second edition and is
printed on good quality glossy stock. This is itself is an important
consideration for a recipe book which will spend much of its time in the
greasy environment of a kitchen.
Mott’s CD review:
