What I'm Listening To: Queensrÿche's RAGE FOR ORDER Demos

New layers of discovery in my favorite 1980s weird gothic sci-fi vampire rock album.

My ears got on another old-school Queensrÿche kick this week and discovered a YouTube playlist of rare un-released demo recordings from Rage for Order, their second album from 1986. And it’s blowing my mind.

But if you have no idea who I’m talking about, let me explain.

Are you frightened? Wait until you hear the music.

Queensrÿche (pronounced “Queen’s Reich”) is more well known in musical circles for their commercial hit Silent Lucidity from 1990 and their rock opera masterpiece Operation: Mindcrime from 1988. But before that happened, they were experimenting with different sounds and images through their first self-titled EP (1983), first album The Warning (1984), and Rage for Order, when their label pressured them into going for a “glam rock look,” hence the strange characters you see here. But strangely enough, the image does fit the sound, and it’s a sound I keep coming back to whenever I want something vicious and weird.

How shall I describe Rage for Order? It really doesn’t sound like any other metal album from that era — the only close comparison which gives a similar vibe that I can think of is David Bowie’s 1995 concept album Outside. Though not a concept album per se, Rage for Order’s songs certainly come from the same universe, or at least a multi-verse of similar dimensions.

The music invokes imagery of a strange gothic science-fiction world that is part-Jack the Ripper Victorian era with foggy streetlamps, and part-Blade Runner cityscape, populated by androgynous vampiric cyberpunk assassins in trench coats. There are songs about political revolution, overthrowing corrupt regimes, and terrifying court cases. There are songs about dark lovers and doomed romances. There are ballads about strange celestial signs. There are actually songs about vampires. And then there is Screaming in Digital, which I think is a conversation between an evil artificial-intelligent cyber-being and their human creator gone wrong, and has something to do with replacing human minds with computer programs — and it’s probably the scariest song you will ever hear in your life.

The actual studio album itself, sadly and strangely enough, is just as hard to find as the demo recordings I discovered. You won’t find it on iTunes or Spotify — your best bet is YouTube or a used CD on Amazon or something.

As for the playlist of demo recordings, if you dare, you can find that here. »

Included are even a couple tracks that were cut from the album and never finished or released, which is a pity, because they’re better than a couple of songs that actually made it. But overall, what I’m digging is the raw unpolished focus on the chord changes, the intricacies of the arrangements, and alternate lyrics before they were finalized for the studio version. They are like rough sketches, without all the extra sound effects, gloss & polish, and creepy dialogue that was added in later.

(Missing from this demo playlist is Gonna Get Close to You, which was actually a cover of a song by Canadian singer Dalbello, and London, which I think is one of the vampire songs — alluded to with the mysterious lyric “blood red streaks on velvet throats at night.” It’s just creepy.)

Queensrÿche became the soundtrack to my high school years ever since I stumbled upon them. I saw them in concert four times over the years and I still can’t stop listening to them. In one sense, they walk that fine line between stupid and clever, while in another, they feed my imagination with dark weirdness.