Imagine a world in which Chris DeGarmo never left Queensryche and the band kept writing awesome albums into their sunset years instead of veritable suckfests like Dedicated to Chaos (I’ll even give them the benefit of the doubt by including Promised Land in the “awesome album” list). Fortunately you don’t really need to try very hard to imagine such a world, because Anubis Gate exist and are pretty much single-handedly carrying the Queensryche torch into a new era, only faster, heavier and more modern-sounding. The new self-titled album by infamous MS troll Ziltoid’s favorite band is full of delicious riffs, proggy but not overly bloated songs, sharp musicianship and a general sense of Queensryche-ness that had me hooked from the very first time I listened to it. I was expecting nothing at all going on, but I’ve listened at least 5 times since; it’s that good!

Carlos Ramirez at Noisecreep knows exactly what I’m talking about. “Golden Days” wouldn’t have been my first choice of songs to premiere; it’s good but not necessarily representative of the album as a whole, so think of it as the “Silent Lucidity” to the band’s usual diet of “Jet City Woman”s and “Revolution Calling”s. But it’s still a solid tune. Check it out at Noisecreep, then come back here and commiserrate the state of modern-day Queensryche in our comments section.

-VN