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In the year 2000, "Queensryche" put out a Greatest Hits collection that was curiously timed. A few years earlier, it would have sold well, but by then the band had stopped being a mainstream commercial force.

Indeed, the "Greatest Hits" package was the last thing they released under a 'major' label. Fast forward a few years, and "Queensryche" is toiling for Sanctuary Records, a label that's quickly snapping up a number of (older) big name bands in the hard rock/heavy metal game, whose time have more or less passed, but are still capable of producing great music. "Queensryche's" first release for this outfit is another greatest hits package of sorts, a live album entitled, "Live Evolution." Last July, the band played two night at the Moore Theater in Seattle, with the set list on the first night reflecting roughly the first half of their career, and the second chronicling the "Queensryche" in the 1990s and beyond.

Somehow, the 'special' nature of those shows -- devoid of the video-enhanced spectacle the band usually puts on -- helps avoid, the "gratuitous release" feeling I associate with last year's "Greatest Hits" album. However, "Live Evolution" has a number of other flaws that prevent it from being a top notch live album.

To be honest, I have issues with everything from the sound, to the setlist to the album packaging. At first blush, "Live Evolution" sounds like everything a live album should be -- raw, gritty, down and dirty, and mostly free from the post-gig studio polishing that sterilizes so many so-called live albums. Subsequent listens show that that isn't an unqualified blessing.

Basically, guitarist Kelly Gray was responsible for recording the show. You'd think that as a member of the band, and as a man with numerous previous production credits ("Alice in Chains", among others), he'd know how to set up his equipment to best capture the band, and to catch all the highlights of the show, right? Maybe it was that lack of studio polish that I just got done praising, but there are a number of holes in the recording that demand notice, from a definite lack of crowd reaction/participation, to barely audible backing vocals that contribute to a curious lack of 'atmosphere' on "Live Evolution." Most egregious, perhaps, was the fact that Pamela Moore (reprising her role as Sister Mary from the "Operation: Mindcrime" album) was also barely audible in the final sound mix. She rated a picture in the liner booklet, but apparently qualify to be well recorded.

What is heard still sounds pretty good, but eventually I came to the conclusion that I've heard bootlegs that sound better than the first disc. Gray might have been thinking along the same lines when he listened to the raw recordings of the first night. The second disc, taken from the second night of shows, sounds that much better than the first disc. Then again, half the tunes from disc two are derived from "Hear in the Now Frontier," and "Q2K," "Queensryche's" two most recent, and weakest studio releases. Beyond the criminal fact that with three songs apiece, those albums were better represented that the band's finest album, "Promised Land," only one of the songs in the HITNF/Q2K Suite managed to breathe any life into the original, and that was "Falling Down." The rest still drag, or in the case of "Hit the Black," drag the original down, and bring the album to a downer close.

That's not to say the set list on disc one was perfect, either. "Operation: Mindcrime" was their breakthrough album, and remains their magnum opus, and therefore rightfully commands a big share of tracks. Still, there was no need to devote half of the first disc to it, when they had so many excellent albums/songs to choose from. It's especially curious, given the fact that "Queensryche's" earlier live album, "Operation: Livecrime" was re-issued on the same day as the release of "Live Evolution." In terms of performance, sound, crowd participation, energy, that 1991 release blows the live 2001 edition of "Mindcrime" away.

The contrast is also instructive for reasons beyond sound issues alone. Granted, the band members have ages since their heady metal days of the 80s and time takes a toll on the human voice like no other instrument, but it's a bit strange to hear old "Queensryche" classics like "Screaming in Digital," and "Roads to Madness" without hearing Geoff Tate even attempt to scale the heights he once reached with his voice. The appearance of a 1991 version of "Roads to Madness" on the re-issued Livecrime hammers that point home. But enough about that album. It's another reason why the second disc of "Live Evolution "feels" better than the first disc -- Tate is singing the songs from the later years in the voice as he originally made them sound, and there's no disconnect between the way he sounds now and the way he sounded back then.

By way of comparison, Kelly Gray has no such excuse. Next to Chris DeGarmo's original leads, his guitar work seems relatively tame, even lifeless at times. The only time he sounds truly at home is in the songs taken from the "Q2K" album, which makes sense, as that's the only "Queensryche" studio release he has played on.

One last criticism must be made about "Live Evolution," and that regards the packaging of the album. Whoever created the back cover/set list clearly wasn't a fan of the band. The two discs are broken down by era, and are denoted as 1) EP/Warning Suite 2)Rage/Mindcrime Suite 3)Empire/Promised Land Suite and 4) HITNF/Q2K Suite. The only problem is, all the songs in the so-called Rage/Mindcrime Suite come from the "Operation: Mindcrime" album. "Rage for Order" songs were bundled in with the songs from the eponymous debut EP and "The Warning" albums.

Furthermore, the song, "Spreading the Disease," enhanced with the inclusion of "Requiem" in the middle, is spread over three tracks, with the last one titled, "Spreading the Disease, Part II." I might be quibbling here, but as any "Queensryche" fan could tell you, there is no such song title in their catalogue.

For all those complaints, however, it IS still "Queensryche". The songs (for the most part, anyway) still rock, and the performance on this album is solid, if not necessarily spectacular. "Live Evolution" is not a bad album, by any means, but it is a classic document of a band whose best days are behind it. (Proof of that might be found in the re-issued, "Operation: Livecrime," -- if you can get only one live "Queensryche" album, that's the one to go with.) Ultimately, it's that fact that stamps the "Live Evolution" package as perhaps a bit more saddening than it is thrilling. I'll still be listening to it, but when I need a "Queensryche" fix, it won't be the first among their albums that come to mind.