Queensryche

Queensrÿche came out of Bellevue, Washington, going by Cross+Fire and then the Mob before settling on their umlauted name in 1982. Michael Wilton and Chris DeGarmo played guitars, Eddie Jackson bass and Scott Rockenfield drums, and they brought in Geoff Tate, a singer with operatic range and pipes to match, to round things out. A self-released EP that same year spread their name beyond Washington and landed them a deal with EMI.

They played metal with brains: The Warning and Rage for Order stretched heavy guitars into progressive shapes, and Operation: Mindcrime, in 1988, took it all the way, a full-blown concept album, with "Eyes of a Stranger", "I Don't Believe in Love" and "Revolution Calling" as its sharpest blows. It's often counted among the greatest heavy metal concept records. Empire, in 1990, went bigger still, and "Silent Lucidity", a hushed ballad, became one of their biggest hits. Alongside Dream Theater and Fates Warning, they're seen as one of progressive metal's big three.

DeGarmo left in 1998, and in 2012 Tate was fired after a backstage fight in São Paulo, replaced by Todd La Torre. A lawsuit followed, and in 2014 Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson won the name, while Tate's version became Operation: Mindcrime.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.