- Country: United States
- Style: Progressive metal / Heavy metal
- Label: Century Media
- Release date: 2 October 2015
The self-titled comeback in 2013 proved Queensrÿche could function without Geoff Tate. Condition Hüman had a harder job: proving they could make something you’d actually reach for over the old records. It gets closer than I expected.
Producer Chris “Zeuss” Harris gives the band a fuller, more layered sound than last time, and Michael Wilton and Parker Lundgren sound like they’re enjoying the twin-guitar interplay again. “Arrow of Time” is a sharp, fast opener, “Guardian” has the best chorus here, and the closing title track stretches out into proper prog territory, slow-building and moody in a way that nods to the Promised Land years. Todd La Torre still sounds uncannily like a young Tate, which is both the band’s biggest asset and the thing that keeps it from feeling fully its own.
Twelve songs at over fifty minutes is a slog in the middle – “Selfish Lives” and “Just Us” are filler – but this was a real band making a real album, not a tribute act, and it went Top 30 in the States to prove people noticed.
Best tracks:
Arrow of Time
Guardian
Hellfire
Condition Hüman
Author’s rating: 7.2/10
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