“Watching the sand fall, listening for the knock upon my door and waiting for Promised Land.”
“We really just came off the last album and tour and unplugged from the industry,” muses QUEENSRYCHE’s Chris DeGarmo about his band’s hiatus from recording and performing. “…EMPIRE represented a very nice step for us to a new place. We knew that the next recording we did together had to be very special.”
It’s been two years since QUEENSRYCHE last played a concert and four years since the release of their triple-platinum album EMPIRE, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the band’s loyal legions of fans have been eagerly awaiting their next project. And just like Chris DeGarmo says, PROMISED LAND, QUEENSRYCHE’s fifth full-length album, is a special event indeed. It marks the return of one of rock’s most innovative and challenging bands with the most powerful and personal effort in their eleven-year recording history.
“We’ve been doing this for years now and we’ve come a long way,” says Michael Wilton. “You set goals and then you complete them and progress, and then there are more goals. You get to a certain point in your life where you do some self-evaluation. This album reflects that.”
The urge to make music led to the formation of QUEENSRYCHE in Seattle over twelve years ago. The five musicians, who had known each other in varying combinations going back to grade school, finally clicked as a unit after all playing in different bands. Once the quintet realized that they had a chemistry together, they never looked back. A four-song demo tape found its way to EMI, where it landed them a deal and became their debut EP, QUEENSRYCHE, in 1983. Critical acclaim and a progression of tours with the likes of AC/DC, Def Leppard, and Ozzy Osbourne began building the band’s rabid following, which was strengthened even further by 1984′s THE WARNING (their first full-length album) and the 1986 release of RAGE FOR ORDER.
But is was 1988′s OPERATION: MINDCRIME, a sense stunning, futuristic concept album accompanied by a series of connected videos, that gave QUEENSRYCHE their first gold album and a taste of popular success. EMPIRE, issued in 1990, put them over the top as mainstream radio and video outlets finally embraced the band wholeheartedly. A mammoth, multi-media headlining tour of arenas followed, and two years later, EMPIRE had sold over three million copies and established the group as superstars.
Characteristically, the members of QUEENSRYCHE decided at that point to back up from the limelight and examine what they had accomplished. “It was just time for us to stop and think about, perhaps even remind ourselves of, why we are together,” says Chris. “Sometimes when things get moving along so fast, that might be forgotten…we needed a pause to let it all absorb.”
“A lot happened after working so hard for so many years,” agrees Geoff Tate. “Having the success of EMPIRE…puts us in a completely different space than we’d ever been before. That’s a lot to deal with. All of a sudden, you’re realizing, ‘I can do this’ or ‘I can do that.’ Maybe you experiment with some of those other things, like your hobbies or your outside pursuits, and then you realize that what you really like to do, is make music.”
It was this self-examination of their careers and personal lives that ultimately inspired the music QUEENRYCHE would record for PROMISED LAND. “The album is almost all about reflection, looking at your life,” says Geoff. “And to write about that, you have to experience it and reflect on it.” Adds Chris: “Many of the past albums have been more observances of life around us, as a result of life.”
“I think it comes from life, but a lot of it is more of an introspective look at assessing these barriers that you make yourself,” adds Michael. “It’s more about trying to be content within what you’ve built, to find peace of mind and personal appreciation.” Written and recorded at the band’s home studio and an isolated cabin in the San Juan Islands (off the coast of northwestern Washington State), PROMISED LAND offers a diversity of moods and textures that mirrors the album’s insightful – and often dark – lyrical explorations. The album’s sequence “9:28 am” into “I Am I” are a visceral display of the unpredictable QUEENSRYCHE forging new ground. The song’s lyrical analysis of self serves as a calling card to the listener of what’s to come. The epic, rumbling title track seethes with the frustration of those caught in the pursuit of western civilization’s “Promised Land” of prosperity and success. The eerie, mechanized “Disconnect” is a perfect companion piece to “My Global Mind,” where the information super highway only brings alienation (“I want no connection/just information/then I’m gone”). And “Bridge,” perhaps the album’s most poignant track, is a wistful, painful exploration of a shattered father-son relationship.
“All of us are from what you’d call dysfunctional families,” says Chris, who wrote the tune. “And that stuff, a lot of it’s painful. It stirs up them emotions. but it’s so enticing to try and tap as an artist…It was really difficult song to write, but it really felt good to get it out. It’s just too bad (my dad) never got to hear it.”
Produced by QUEENSRYCHE and James “Jimbo” Barton, PROMISED LAND presents the kind of aural and emotional landscape that this fiercely independent band is known for. “It’s especially nice this far into our career to have such a satisfying project for us to do,” states Chris. “It’s the writing, recording, and the satisfaction of achieving what we tried to do, and even surprising ourselves, which I think we did on this too. We never really know exactly what we’re coming out with, we only see the light at the end of the tunnel and we build the tunnel as we go. This record just feels really good. After we got done and it was mixed, we all just looked at each other and said ‘yup!’”
“We’re a progressive band in the sense that, each album, we move on,” concludes Michael Wilton. “And it shows that we care about what we’re writing about, and that we’re writing it for ourselves. I would hate to be stuck doing five Mindcrimes, or five Empires, or five Promised Lands. I think it’s always changing, and I think that our fans who listen to our music come to expect that. They always expect something different from QUEENSRYCHE.”
| # | TITLE | SAMPLE | LYRICS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01. | 9:28 AM | Alternative content |  SHOW |
| 02. | I Am I | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 03. | Damaged | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 04. | Out Of Mind | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 05. | Bridge | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 06. | Promised Land | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 07. | Disconnected | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 08. | Lady Jane | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 09. | My Global Mind | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 10. | One More Time | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 11. | Someone Else? | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 12. | Real World | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 13. | Someone Else? (w/ Full Band) | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 14. | Damaged (Live) | Alternative content | SHOW |
| 15. | Real World (Live) | Alternative content | SHOW |