Ex-QUEENSRŸCHE Singer GEOFF TATE Is Working On Second SWEET OBLIVION Album

BLABBERMOUTH.NET

Former QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate is working on the second album from his SWEET OBLIVION project for a 2021 release via Frontiers Music Srl. The upcoming effort is being produced by Aldo Lonobile (SECRET SPHERE, ARCHON ANGEL, TIMO TOLKKI'S AVALON) and "will surprise everyone," according to Frontiers head honcho Serafino Perugino, by not only "keep[ing] the musical trademarks of the debut, but also enhanc[ing] them." SWEET OBLIVION's self-titled debut album was released in June 2019 via Frontiers. The LP saw Tate teaming up with a stellar cast of Italian musicians led by Simone Mularoni, the mastermind of prog metal masters DGM. Musically, this album marked a return to the more melodic metal style for Tate and showcased a fine collection of songs highlighting the great talents of Mularoni and his cast of musicians. Regarding how the SWEET OBLIVION debut came about, Tate told Sonically Disruptive: "I got contacted by a gentleman from my record company in Italy, who said he knew a guy, Simone Mularoni, who was an excellent guitar player [and] who was a huge fan of my music. He thought that it would be kind of fun to put the two of us together to see if we could do something together. That happened, and we started trading musical ideas and trading things over the internet. In time, we came up with the album. The unique thing about this record, I think, is it was all recorded and mixed and written over the Internet without us having ever been in the same room, which is cool. It's a really neat way of doing it — very 21st Century. In fact, we still have not actually spoken a word to each other — we just communicated via text and email, which is even cooler and really unique. [It was] the first time I've ever worked like that, and I actually quite like it." Asked why he enjoyed working in that manner, Geoff said: "It's [an] unbelievable waste of time — all that chit-chat that goes on. You're just sitting for hours and hours, kind of held hostage in a room. I would much prefer to be in my own scene doing the work and then conferring back and forth and making changes and you go along. It's a cool way to work, and I really like it." Speaking about what it was like to return to playing progressive metal with SWEET OBLIVION, Tate said: "My roots of what I do have always been into heavy rock, heavy metal music. It's what I've always done. What I've done over time is sort of revamp some of those old ideas and modernize the delivery and bring in more late 20th Century/early 21st Century perspectives on the music. That's kind of where my head is, but now and then, I like of like to return to a more retro, old kind of delivery, which is where this [SWEET OBLIVION] album is. It's very retro, and very much what I've done already in my life and my career. In fact, that was our meeting point with Simone and I — he was a big fan of what I had done in my career, so he was giving me his ideas that were based upon my ideas. It was a comfortable place to meet. It was familiar." Earlier in the year, Tate was forced to postone a number of his tour dates due to the coronavirus pandemic that is spreading across the globe. Tate spent the first two months of 2020 performing the QUEENSRŸCHE albums "Rage For Order" and "Empire" in their entirety on the "Empire 30th Anniversary Tour", which kicked off in January in Norway. Prior to that, Geoff celebrated the 30th anniversary of QUEENSRŸCHE's "Operation: Mindcrime" album on European and U.S. tours. Tate's post-QUEENSRŸCHE band OPERATION: MINDCRIME released three albums over three years as part of a trilogy: "The Key" (September 2015), "Resurrection" (September 2016) and "The New Reality" (December 2017).