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Queensryche: Geoff Tate, Chris DeGarmo, Michael Wilton, Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield.On TRIBE, Queensryche's first proper album since 1999's Q2K, the band combines all of the disparate sonic elements it had explored over the course of a half-dozen groundbreaking records into a consistently satisfying whole. All of the trademarks the group's longtime fans have come to expect are here: the stop-start prog-rock rhythms and high-pitched '80s-metal vocalizing ("Desert Dance," "Open"), the heady, polysyllabic Neil Peart-like lyrics ("The Great Divide"), and the crushingly heavy super-chops (the title track).This time around, however, Queensryche seems surprisingly content to stay largely within the confines of pop song structures, sometimes even employing melodies so catchy and rhythms so bouncy that they wouldn't be out of place on a Journey record. Make no mistake, though; TRIBE is no pop sell-out, but rather eminently listenable evidence of a gracefully aging group further refining its constantly evolving and steadfastly uncompromising sound.
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