Operation: Mindcrime, the progressive rock and metal hybrid fronted by Geoff Tate, have announced Dec. 1 as the release date for the album The New Reality. The LP is the third and final chapter in the musical trilogy from the former Queensryche vocalist.
The New Reality follows a little over one year after the release of the band’s second chapter, Resurrection, in 2016 and about two years after the first chapter, The Key. Tate designed Operation: Mindcrime as a creative platform that continues in the spirit of the historic Queensryche album of the same name, intent to spawn concepts as grand as the music, and intertwining the intensity of the Tate’s iconic past with the provocative, progressive mindset that has made him one of music’s most resolute frontmen.
Back when he started the trilogy, Tate said he wanted to make a three-album story “for a number of years and [was] kind of waiting to come up with a story that would support that.”
“[In 2015] on a hike through Northern Spain I wrote the story and it really kind of just began flowing and took on a life of its own, where you have this idea and it starts developing and you come up with ideas very easily and it starts growing and you just kind of want to stay out of your own way and let it take its course,” he said. “So, for the last year I’ve been working on all three albums and really enjoying the process. It’s a very comfortable process working with people that have been involved with it.”
Tate is joined on The New Reality by Kelly Gray, John Moyer, Simon Wright, Scott Mercado, Scott Moughton, Brian Tichy and Mike Ferguson, a cast of musicians whose talent and resumes speak volumes for the quality of songcraft that will be on display on the album. Both the track listing and artwork for the record can be seen below.
The landmark concept album Operation: Mindcrime thrust Queensryche and Tate’s unique social consciousness, style and expertly crafted lyrics into the national spotlight in 1988, and was followed by the highly successful Empire in 1990, the album that delivered the band to arena-headlining status and sold more than three million albums on the back of hit singles and radio staples “Silent Lucidity” and “Jet City Woman.”
Tate split from the band amid well-publicized acrimony in 2012, but over the past summer, the two camps ran into one another at a music festival in Spain and by all accounts got on well during a brief exchange.
