Queensrÿche

 Queensrÿche has prompted many deep questions in the course of its twenty years as a band. What does it mean to be silently lucid? Has anyone ever been noisily lucid? Is Dr. X noisily lucid? (Ronnie James Dio certainly is.) Further: Does "conceptual metal" exist only in one's head, and does one need to be silently lucid to hear it? And how do you pronounce a Y with an umlaut over it? In 2006, the 'Rÿche is set to answer some questions and raise some new ones. This year, the boys (minus founding guitarist Chris DeGarmo) released Operation: Mindcrime II, a sequel to their 1988 magnum opus. The albums' characters — Rikki, Mary, Dr. X and the rest of the gang — are back, eighteen years later, ready to blow your mind and better your life through conceptual metal. As for DeGarmo, he is now flying commercial aircraft for a living. Doesn't get much more prog than that.