HEAR IN THE NOW FRONTIER
Queensr˙che
•Progressive Metal
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Studio Album, released in 1997 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Sign Of The Times (3:33) - Geoff Tate / vocals
Artwork: Hugh Syme with Dimo Safari (design) and to Quinino for the last updates Edit this entry |
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QUEENSRYCHE Hear In The Now Frontier ratings distribution
(191 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(4%)
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(16%)
Good, but non-essential (42%)
Collectors/fans only (25%)
Poor. Only for completionists (14%)
QUEENSRYCHE Hear In The Now Frontier reviews
Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings
Collaborators/Experts Reviews
PROG REVIEWER

SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

Queenryche have over the years been rather up and down with their albums. They followed up the excellent "Operation : Mindcrime" with the MTV dominated, and ultimately disappointing, "Empire". They then found their way again with the darker "Promised land", but here with the follow up to that album, things go a bit pear shaped again.
The problem with "Hear in the now frontier" is it's just not that good. The song writing appears to be the main culprit, but the production too is lacking focus and direction. The band seem to have been trying to avoid the overt commercialism of "Empire", but lost their nerve when it came to venturing too far from the MTV pop rock with which they found such great success.
The opening track, "Sign of the times" whets the appetite for the album, being an enjoyable if unadventurous slice of melodic pop rock. Things however go rapidly down hill from there, with the following tracks "Cuckoo's nest", "Get a life", and "The voice inside" being average pop rock. "Some people fly", even sounds like a repetition of "Cuckoo's nest".
There are some pleasant if still unchallenging tracks. "You" has the sound of a hit single, with a strong hook in the chorus, "Hero" has some pleasant acoustic guitar supporting Bowie-esque vocals, and "All I want" has echoes of the Beatles with higher pitched vocals, and a psychedelic guitar effect. (Tate was uncomfortable with the song, and declined to sign on it!)
The remastered version of the album has four bonus tracks, three of which are MTV unplugged versions of tracks from previous albums. The versions of "Silent lucidity" ("Empire"), "The killing words", and "I will remember" (both "Rage to order") are all excellent. They appear truly unplugged, thus bringing out the strong melodies of the original compositions. A side effect of this that they can sound like Journey at times.
The other additional track is "Chasing blue sky", a highly commercial soft ballad, with strong hints of the Beatles.
The musical chairs within the band for who leads each album continues here, with Chris DeGamo taking on the role for this album. While "Hear in the now frontier" has some good moments, overall it represents a step backwards for the band. The bonus tracks on the remastered CD, together with some informative sleeve notes, do however enhance the package considerably.
PROG REVIEWER

PROG REVIEWER

SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator

This is not a bad hard rock album even though I think it´s a bit nice if this was the style Queensryche were trying to hit. But it´s not the kind of music we´re used to from them, and I don´t think a single fan was excited about it.
The music is well executed and the production is full and rich, it just doesn´t help when the compositions are this lame. somewhere between 2 and 3 stars it´s probably a 2.
PROG REVIEWER

Sign of the Times..
The title of the first track really describes this album in a nut shell. After it seemed that Queensryche was heading in the right direction, they turned their ugly head yet again into a terrible album. I'll try to make this review as short as possible.
Queensryche, as hailing from Seattle, seemed to be like the grunge bands from the same area. As much as I hate grunge in its entirety, it became a dead genre none-the-less today, like punk and disco. So even as time goes by this album just sounds worse and worse by the years. Geoff Tate became the opposite of the once stand-out singer he was, and is now just one in the crowd. The aggressive riffs from the guitars can be present once in a while, but any artistic value behind them is completely void.
This album just gets 2 stars for copying the typical grunge sound well and not bad. Otherwise this would be a flat one.
PROG REVIEWER

Queensryche got lucky in 1991 by having a phenomenally successful album even while their genre was hemorrhaging. 1994 brought the interesting but unfocused Promised Land when the entire music industry was still in flux after the grunge explosion. Whether it was record company pressure or a desire for a return to the high profile of Empire, for the next album, Queensryche completely revamped their sound. Shifting toward pop and an Alice-in-Chains lite style of grunge, it is very tempting to think "sellout." I suppose this should have surprised no one. However, as a huge Queensryche fan, I can still remember standing in front of my stereo with my freshly opened CD, massively disappointed. The opener "Sign of the Times" was well written, though very straightforward. I figured I could handle one song like that if there were more interesting things to come. Sadly, the opener is the best work of the album.
Many 80's bands were trying this tactic about this time, and many were keeping their careers limping along with this move (Motley Crue comes to mind.) If the songwriting had been there, I would have probably stayed along. But most of the songs are incredibly dull. Along with the opener, "You" is catchy enough, but some of the songs are so forgettable that, well, I can't remember any of their names. The guitar riffs are actually pretty good for grunge but simply aren't Queensryche. The little bit of lead guitar playing is simply stupid. I can almost hear both guitarists rolling their eyes throughout the entire disc. It is no surprise that co-leader Chris DeGarmo left after this, and without him, the band simply ceased to matter. Incredibly, some of the later albums are worse.
Geoff Tate still sounds great on this album, even if the Iron Maidenisms are long gone. He seems to be having a little fun using some of the 90's tricks of the trade ("Hit the Black") and really is the only member of the band who still is showing any of his identity. Still, the lyrics do not leave much impression, and his melodic delivery is mostly generic. When the melody is memorable, it is in a pop vein. Sign of the times indeed.
Bottom line: the prog is gone. The edge is gone. Mostly boring. Don't Bother.
COLLABORATOR PSIKE & JR/F/Canterbury Teams

Upon first listen I was as disgusted by this album as anyone else. I mean who would have thunk this? QUEENSRYCHE? Famous for rock operas and sophisti-metal doing grunge? Oh gimme a break! Well, I wrote this album off for many years but I have been giving it a spin and re-evaluating it and I have to say that it's not as bad as my first impressions made it out to be. True, it will hardly go down as their crowning achievement but once again they do manage to deliver extremely well written melodic performances albeit stripped down. They definitely prove here that they have the basic skills of songwriting down pat and no further embellishment is necessary. OK, point well taken. I can get on board with their bold and brash ability to constantly reinvent themselves. I love bands that do just that. So what's holding me back from liking this more?
I have to say I think the problem stems not from the fact that they did a complete left turn to create a new sound. That is not the issue here at all. I think the problem lies in the fact that they are simply overqualified as musicians to be doing this kind of less demanding stuff. Geoff Tate's operatic vocal ability over the simpler riffing and song structure is as surreal as the ear-covered desolate landscape gracing the album cover and liner notes. This album is tantamount to the London Symphony Orchestra playing nursery rhymes at a kid's birthday party or Yes doing a full performance of "Close To The Edge" only reggae style at a flea market. There are actually a few songs here I really like. I totally dig "Sign Of The Times," "Hit The Black," "Anytime / Anywhere" and "spOOL." No individual tracks are bad but the album is a bit samey and lacks enough diverse elements to justify the nearly 60 minute experience. It's true that if this WAS a Pearl Jam or Nivana album, it would be fantastic but this is QUEENSRYCHE. Everybody expected more. OK. I'm down with experimentation and all and I give this one a passing grade, it's just not an album I find myself wanting to hear very often. I always go back to the albums that came before.
Latest members reviews
This album is much maligned as the beginning of Queensryche's downfall. While their subsequent albums are indeed bad, this is
quite enjoyable. This is not prog, and not metal, but polished hard rock with dense sound a la grunge rock. And multi-range Tate's
vocals are still in top form. If you di
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Report this review (#1000730) | Posted by Progrussia | Thursday, July 18, 2013 | Review Permanlink
Hear In The Now Frontier is the sixth full-length studio album by the Seattle based Progressive
Metal Queensr˙che, it was recorded in Stone Gossard's home studio, produced by Toby Wright and
released in 1997. With every passing album from the beginning of their career up until the time when
this
... (read more)
Report this review (#755287) | Posted by Gentlegiantprog | Saturday, May 19, 2012 | Review Permanlink
I suppose I can understand why this album is getting such poor reviews, although, I disagree.
From what I can tell, the only significant difference between this album and their earlier albums is the
production. You could make the argument that Queensryche albums are tyically overproduced.
Loo
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Report this review (#169662) | Posted by scevrog | Saturday, May 3, 2008 | Review Permanlink
A musical change? A turning point?...Well, a big collapse. I don't know what's the reason this
band had to leave his classic style. I can't say it's Tate & co. here! Purely alternative music and
his voice is other as I know. I remembered I listen this album twice soon after its release, but
sin
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Report this review (#167760) | Posted by Sachis | Thursday, April 17, 2008 | Review Permanlink
3.5 stars. This album is a definite departure from Queensryche's masterpieces of the previous 10
years. I agree that it fails to reach the gold standard they set with Operation: Mindcrime, but the
album is far from a failure. Perhaps a bit less proggy, a bit more accessible, somewhat in the vein
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Report this review (#164996) | Posted by senor_velasco | Wednesday, March 26, 2008 | Review Permanlink
2.5 stars really
Well, it was a great run but a run I knew couldn't last. From their 1983
self-produced, self-titled 4-song EP through 1994's Promised Land Queensryche had
released five discs with almost five hours of mind-expanding, thought-provoking,
emotion-bending music that never once fai
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Report this review (#85145) | Posted by MrMan2000 | Sunday, July 30, 2006 | Review Permanlink
After the Tate-influenced Promised Land it was Degarmo's turn to be the main driving
force behind an album - Hear In The Now Frontier. As with the album Empire, Degarmo
attempted to create a more commercial sound which was aimed at the masses rather
than the fans of the classic Queensryche so
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Report this review (#82639) | Posted by Jon_Mc | Tuesday, July 4, 2006 | Review Permanlink
I got this album to help compete my Queensryche collection after hearing the "Big 4" and feeling like I owed it
to Queensryche for giving me awesome music and I found it both disappointing and good in different
ways.
1. LISTENING AS A QUEENSRYCHE FAN - I decided to approach this album in two wa
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Report this review (#81172) | Posted by Sacrilege | Wednesday, June 14, 2006 | Review Permanlink
Inoffensive Pop Metal.
This album is an excellent example of uninspired musicians turning out an album and the
disastrous results that follow. The songwriting is poor and the songs are just not
memorable. You'll quickly lose interest while listening and start playing with that search
butto
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Report this review (#80702) | Posted by Equality 7-2521 | Thursday, June 8, 2006 | Review Permanlink
come on let's face it: after four albums like "rage for
order", "operation:mindcrime", "empire" and "promised land" it was really hard to have
another masterpiece. and so also a perfect band as queensryche are could do it to have
the less beautiful album of their career just after. and they di
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Report this review (#80654) | Posted by heavydrum | Wednesday, June 7, 2006 | Review Permanlink
Err... is that the same band that wrote "Promised Land" a couple of years before? The
whole album here sounds flat, with almost no originality, no catchy melodies, no great
lyrics.
There aren't many highlights here (songs like "Hit The Black" would even get 1/10 on
my personal rating system):
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Report this review (#66334) | Posted by zaxx | Monday, January 23, 2006 | Review Permanlink
HITNF was the biggest dissapointment that i felt in my life as a fan (along with
peter hammill's noise). 3 years after the great album called promised land
queensryche came with their worst record ever. The alternative/grunge influences are
so many and the album cannot even be characterized as r
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Report this review (#39692) | Posted by | Monday, July 18, 2005 | Review Permanlink
I am a collector and a great fan. Honestly , i like this album, i listened to it many times, and
finally , i made everything to enjoy this album and i do, but if you are not convinced about
queensryche, never buy it, it is an album that took me like many attentive listening , in
order to diffe
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Report this review (#23630) | Posted by | Sunday, April 17, 2005 | Review Permanlink
This album was over-produced and Chris DeGarmo was over-produced as well. I hope you
get what I mean. Chris should have given more opportunity to the other members to speak
out their ideas and create something as band. I love Queensryche and I dare not saying
HITNF is a "bad" one. It was just.
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Report this review (#23627) | Posted by | Tuesday, June 29, 2004 | Review Permanlink
not a bad album but far from Promised Land... first the production is not so good, it's still okay and head above most of the albums from prog or metal bands (at the time) but not as big or as beautiful as their previous ones... then the songwriting has lowered, maybe 5 songs are fillers and even if
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Report this review (#23625) | Posted by | Tuesday, March 23, 2004 | Review Permanlink
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