Yeah, we like it, too.

No, the band, you dirty old man. The Thinking Man's band. The band that plays music with meaning. They sing about political corruption, building Empires, rainy nights without you and mysterious ladies wearing black. But they're best known as the band that redefined the record industry's opinion of the concept album.

Geoff Tate, Chris DeGarmo, Michael Wilton, Eddie Jackson and Scott Rockenfield of Queensryche turned the musical world on its amp with the 1988 release of the legendary concept album Operation: Mindcrime. Backed by Wilton, Jackson and Rockenfield, DeGarmo's gift with a six-string was matched only by Tate's incredible set of pipes. A detailed storyline, strong character development and killer songs (no pun intended for those who actually understand said pun) made this album one of the most ambitious and innovative releases of the decade. It was met with both popular and critical success, earning the band triple platinum certification (selling over three million copies) and a Grammy nomination.

Mindcrime was followed up by Empire, the band's most successful album to date. It sold over four million copies because of songs like "Silent Lucidity", "Jet City Woman" and "Another Rainy Night". Since then, the band has released nine other records (with more than a few live concert albums thrown in for good measure). While the band continues to earn critical success for a number of those efforts, the commercial success has never reached that achieved in the late '80s and early '90s primarily due to Mindcrime.

So if the success won't follow you, you follow the success. Which is exactly what the band is doing with Mindcrime II. That's right. Sister Mary is coming back.

Earlier this year, we were able to catch the Ryche live in concert (which counted as the sixth time we'd seen 'em up close and personal). "A Night With Queensryche" was the tour, which simply means no opening band. The first half of the concert was a mixed collection of old hits and new favorites, from their debut album up through Tribe. Not bad at all, but the real show stealer was the second half. They played Mindcrime in its entirety, complete with huge video screens and actual actors running around the stage that was surprisingly cool. But at the end of the show, they played a 5-minute video of Mindcrime II which is scheduled to be released in early 2006.

After stumbling across this, it appears the band has recently been doing more than showing a video of their next effort. God bless the bootlegger.

And God Bless Queensyrche for getting back to the source. You've been missed.