So - now that Chris was gone, how would Queensryche cope with the loss of their main songwriter?

This album is much derided - epscially by the press, but crucially also by a number of fans as well. Is it as bad as people suggest? My answer to that would be yes - and no.

There are 2 or 3 songs on this album that wouldn't be out of place on any other Queensryche album - I'm thinking specifically of 'Liquid sky', 'Right side of my mind', and 'Breakdown'. They have all the fluidity and the twists of anything on 'Promised land' or 'Rage for order', and I especially enjoy seeing the band jumping around like maddies when they play 'Breakdown' live.

The rest of the album is fairly average - not great, but not bad. Kelly Gray fills the void left by Chris, but doesn't, to my ears, bring a new dimension to the band. He just fits in.

Perhaps this sums up the this rather confusing album - from Wordspy

q2k - noun. The rallying cry for supporters of Dan Quayle's bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 (cf. Y2K).

Some Dan Quayle quotes (see also here)

"I didn't pay a lot of attention as I should have in college."
"We don't want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward."
"Votes are like trees, if you are trying to build a forest. If you have more trees than you have forests, then at that point the pollsters will probably say you will win."
"If you give a person a fish, they'll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they'll fish for a lifetime."
"The other day [the President] said, I know you've had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. [He paused, then said] Would you like a puppy? "
"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe."

Dan Quayle may be a total tube, but would he have been any worse than what the world got with the 'election' of George W Bush?