Queensryche - The Verdict 1. Blood Of The Levant

2. Man The Machine

3. Light-years

4. Inside Out

5. Propaganda Fashion

6. Dark Reverie

7. Bent

8. Inner Unrest

9. Launder The Conscience

10. Portrait

The split between Queensrÿche and original singer Geoff Tate was a messy affair, as bitter as any divorce. But in the five years since Tate lost the right to use the band’s name they’ve been doing just fine without him.

The Verdict is their third album with singer Todd La Torre, a Tate sound-alike formerly of ’Rÿche sound-alikes Crimson Glory.

And while Tate’s band Operation: Mindcrime, named after Queensrÿche’s 80s masterpiece, has now been wound up after three tortuously overwrought concept albums, The Verdict has the modern ’Rÿche in commanding form.

An improvement on their 2015 album Condition Hüman, it has all of the hallmarks of the band’s early classics – the heavy metal power and prog rock finesse, the majestic twin-guitar harmonies and glass-shattering vocals.

Blood Of The Levant is a model of controlled aggression, but there is beauty, too, in the melodic pull of Light-Years and the subtle shifts in Dark Reverie.

For Queensrÿche, the battle is won.