Review by Rexorcist for Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime (1988)

The history of rock operas all begins with Tommy, a weird little concept that made The Who one of the biggest bands on Earth.  This concept was a fairly psychological one, and since then some of the biggest names in rock wanted to recreate that.  Pink Floyd took a much more surreal approach, upping the psychological ante.  Queensryche did it differently.  it was all about crime, drugs, conspiracies and the like.  And in the end it became recognized (as it should) as a creative peak in heavy metal.  Operation: Mindcrime is a diversified metal opera that has tons of replay value because heavy metal catchiness is treated as importantly as the concept.  And because the concept has a lot of sides to it, we get a lot of different types of music taking turns delivering their parts without waning in either heaviness, jam factor or concept delivery.  There's some of the classic US power metal, noticeable hints of prog (it's DEFINITELY not a prog album), little bits of speed metal, hair metal production and more.  And even though Queensryche albums tend to be flawed, this time they don't really have any, as if for once in their lives the art of music was important to them, and by the time they were huge they thought they didn't need to focus on it as much.  At least we still have this outstanding work here, and it may very well be the greatest metal opera I've ever heard.  But I still don't think it's prog, or that it belongs in the Infinite.