Queensrÿche: Rage For Order

The Top Twenty Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time

Number 18

“Wait a minute! Don’t you mean Queensrÿche – Operation Mindcrime? What sort of malarkey is this?”

It’s as if a million voices all at once just spoke. I hear you… but, for mine – Rage For Order was the one that completely blew me away.

Queensrÿche were the Metal press’ media darlings at the time. Bursting into the scene with a killer demo tape which became the 1982 EP ‘Queensrÿche’. By 1984, they were already appearing on the cover of the Metal mags and released the amazing ‘The Warning’ album. A fantastic slab of tunes ruined by a poor mix but enough to get 5 star reviews the world over regardless.

By the next album, Rage For Order, the band had matured into an incredible, versatile and original band. Rage For Order features a band willing to experiment and take chances. Progressive and multi-layered with all manner of sounds bordering on Industrial and Electronica influences mixed with the traditional Metal guitars, bass, drums.

It is an epic album both grandiose and majestic and the band’s label EMI were fully behind it. So much so that the label insist the band take on an almost New Romantic image which was met with a huge backlash by fans.

It was a wrong move and served to alienate many, no matter how good the music was.

To me, Rage For Order stayed on my turntable for a long time and in actual fact, was also the very first compact disc I ever bought. It is an album I often return to these days and easily one of the band’s finest offerings.

Other contenders: Queensrÿche – Operation Mindcrime