Something happened after the excellent "Empire"(90), the albums from this leading progressive metal band Queensryche that came out during the 90s such as "Promised land" from 94 (still had some nice songs like "I am I","Damaged" and "Lady Jane"). "Hear in the now frontier" from 97 (leaving behind the prog rock influences that made them distinctive and Chris DeGarmo left the band when the album fell down the charts) and "Q2K" from 99(with guitarist Kelly Gray replacing DeGarmo,the band did a successful tour but the songs on then album were too experimentful).
The music never seemed to find its way back to the elements of the classic early works "Rage for order", "Operation mindcrime" and ofcourse "Empire". Now that Chris DeGarmo is back in the band writing songs again and playing on this new album (but not touring??!!),many of us Queensryche fans had high hopes of something great coming from this experimenting rock band.
The music is very deep like on the latest releases but the songs are stronger and the visits in the progressive world feels oh so welcome. The oriental "Desert dance" contains some gorgeous riffs from DeGarmo and Wilton, the title track "Tribe" is their best song written since 90 - pure magic a la Rush and this is what I would have liked more of on the new album but even if its better than the material weve heard from this band in a decade, it wont match the classic stuff.
Also have in mind that it takes 3-4 times to get into the music on "Tribe", however they are on the right path again....that leads back to the Empire.
