Review by Sonny for Queensrÿche - The Warning (1984)

I am a massive fan of Queensrÿche's classic 1988 Operation: Mindcrime album, it is one of my top-rated heavy metal albums, yet inexplicably I have never bothered with any of their other releases. So I am only now getting acquainted with their 1984 debut for the very first time.

The Warning grabbed me from the off with it's strikingly melodic, yet powerfully delivered opening track, following it up with a Maiden-esque gallop through En Force and that opening one-two had me hooked and eager for more. If En Force was heavily derived from Iron Maiden's Steve Harris, bass-fuelled galloping style, then next track Deliverance is just as obviously influenced by Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny. With No Sanctuary Geoff Tate introduces more progressive elements and variations in pacing. It is also at this point that I became aware that the album is presenting a coherent theme, the lyrics all relating to the search for freedom and the attempts by the strong and powerful to deny it, the speedy N M 156 attributing that oppression to the very machines we create to free ourselves from mundane labour.

Take Hold of the Flame seems to be everyone's favourite track (if RYM's track ratings are anything to go by) but personally it's the track I like least, sounding a little too AOR-oriented for my taste and possibly written with radio airplay in mind. Before the Storm is a decent track, but doesn't really grab hold of me like those on side one. Child of Fire once more heavily invokes Judas Priest, at least initially before it heads off in a more restrained and emotional-sounding direction, returning after a nice solo to the Dissident Aggressor-like riff of the earlier section.

And so to closing track, the almost ten-minute Roads to Madness, where Queensrÿche begin to properly explore a more progressive metal direction and in so doing turn in the album's best track. Geoff Tate's vocals on this track are fantastic and sound genuinely filled with emotion. This is the real precursor to where Queensrÿche were heading, I feel and is a great closer for an impressive, if not completely flawless, debut. Despite showing it's influences, Geoff Tate and co stamped more than enough of their own character onto the tracks and displayed enough songwriting chops and technical virtuosity to make The Warning a standout album in the early days of the US power metal movement.