Geoff Tate
Kings & Thieves

One of the top singers of all times in the rock and metal genres, the man behind the amazing Operation Mindcrime of course with help from his Queensrÿche friends. And now lately all these calamities with Queensrÿche and all of that which I do not really care the slightest about, and all of this perhaps has led to Geoff Tate’s second solo album following his self titled debut from 2002. This new album is called Kings & Thieves which is an interesting title that could have pointed towards an exciting adventure, but it didn’t. Looking at the youtube video of the Dark Money song and reading the comments there one will have to wonder about people, just spitting on Tate and his music, some guy even stated that he was abusing his former wife without presenting any evidence something that in Sweden at least is punishable by law. Then again I cannot really understand why one earth it should be possible to comment on videos like that anyway, most people who do are idiots anyway so you could call me dumb for reading that crap and it does annoy me so I guess I am.

Musically now, Tate once had the best of voices like when he did Mindcrime and he sings well now even though he has aged and that is very audible in his singing. The music itself is melodic rock music, mostly midtempo and mostly not very heavy, vocals are midrange even if Tate finds his way to some higher notes from time to time. The sound is a bit on the raw side, very well produced and some nice guitar solos there to spice it up as well. The variation over the album’s 52 minutes is quite good as well, I think it is a well recorded product.

I am not as impressed with the songwriting though as the album is mostly boring with songs that never takes off and stories not really being told, the lyrics are good but no one bothers to listen to those if the album is boring and this unfortunately is. In a way I guess this was to be expected considering the crap we’ve seen from Queensrÿche in recent years but it is better than recent works by Queensrÿche so I guess you could call it a step in the right direction even though it is as amusing as vomiting in a bucket.

It sounds quite a bit like Tate has lost his inspiration as I would describe the songs as uninspired, dreary, dull, and boring. The album doesn’t really go anywhere but it stands still staring into a void of uninspired fog, and in the end I would say that it is a disappointing and pointless album by a man who appears to be long past his prime. It is a shame that such an amazing singer keeps putting out such disappointing albums over and over again as we all know he has the talent. An album that shows that talent is nothing without inspiration.

HHHHHHH