This double album, which collects new rarities and live or alternative versions of their latest material, is a fabulous treat for diehard fans, showcasing the less cluttered direction they’ve taken in recent years. For everyone else, it’s an interesting diversion at best. The elaborate fold-out package reflects the band’s artistic pretenses, with exquisite photographs of the band members, their family and friends and some of their infamous custom percussion instruments. It all seems designed to convey a sense of history and ongoing relevance, but the actual album too often consists of experiments that don’t congeal into solid songs. As examples of musique concrète, highbrow performance and concept art (one piece represents the preparation of shrimp scampi), the material is perfectly valid—but in terms of compelling music, the band’s success varies wildly. It’s not a question of accessibility—the jarring time signatures, atonal effects and abrasive percussion provide the album’s most tense, interesting moments—but the collection has little sense of continuity. Without a consistent theme, Strategies III comes off as the result of the band clearing its vaults—which begs the question, how much further can they possibly go from here?

––Ryan J. Kuo

Morel

Queen of the Highway

Yoshitoshi

Considering the low-profile release of his debut album, Richard Morel has surprisingly hefty credentials. A former engineer for U.S. house auteurs Deep Dish, he’s gone on to remix the likes of Depeche Mode and New Order. Queen of the Highway, then, is intended as his claim to fame, or at least musical autonomy. Apparently designed to showcase the breadth of his abilities, it sets mid-tempo guitar numbers and downtempo head-nodders next to the progressive house for which he’s best known.

Queen’s best moments are, unsurprisingly, the straightforward dance tunes. Like most progressive house, these are spotlessly produced, vaguely pretty and not much else. On a good afternoon the fleeting, pulsing beats strike a nostalgic air—like trying to return to days that have long passed. Most successful is a Deep Dish mix of “True,” with its big-room “whoosh” effects, catchy little trance melody and memorable gay-themed lyrics (“I’m a man that is all / It’s true, the faggot is you”). It’s the only distinctive tune on the album, and its peak moment.

Queen’s queasy moments come when Morel decides to pick up a microphone and jam with his band. The resulting pop tunes make a strong case for sticking to paths that are time-tested and crowd-approved, and leaving the funny experiments to the big boys. Morel’s pristine studio polish, which helps redeem the otherwise lifeless house music, only saps his guitar songs of immediacy and relevance. Besides not being able to sing, his lyrics can be cringe-worthy: “So carry these words inside of you / Love is really sad.” Evenly divided between dreadful, plodding songs and competent exercises in a still-lackluster dance subgenre, Queen is sincere but altogether forgettable.

––Ryan J. Kuo

Dream Theater

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Elektra