Queensryche

Queensryche were never the most popular of the 1980s hair-metal bands, but they emerged from the heyday of heavy metal with a prestige many of their contemporaries lost (or never had in the first place), thanks to their political, prog-metal ambitions. In 2006, they issued a mostly well-received follow-up to their 1988 masterwork, Operation: Mindcrime, that, if nothing else, reminded metal fans how powerful the first Mindcrime album was (the sequel also won points for its imaginative use of guest Ronnie James Dio). In 2009, they released a new concept album, American Soldier, which the band wrote after interviewing veterans.