Operation Mindcrime II

I was very nervous about listening to this. Mindcrime was one of the best albums of the 90's and still stands up well today. Haunting melodies, interesting song structures, vivid imageries, characters with depth who actually develop over the course of the album. If you enjoyed the original, you may want to avoid this one. I listened to it several times over several days in order to be sure I gave it a fair review.

Plodding critiques of the government compete with tired ripoffs of their own riffs to be the most banal aspect of this forgetable album. The injection of current politics into a world that was originally set in a non-specific era is jarring and even though I agree with the politics I find it distracting.

Some of the songs try to imitate the original album only to come off as a bad Queensryche rip off. The ones that don't copy are worse.

The references to the first Operation Mindcrime are clumsy and cheapen the original. It is much like a bad sequel to a beloved movie. Mindcrime II is the direct-to-video follow up with none of the cast of the blockbuster. Except it is the same cast, minus Chris DeGarmo who left the band again in 2003. Possibly to avoid the embarassment of being associated with this.