Seattle rockers Queensrÿche have signed with Century Media and will release their new album June 11.

The new disc will be the debut album from the current lineup of Todd La Torre (vocals), Michael Wilton (guitars), Parker Lundgren (guitars), Eddie Jackson (bass) and Scott Rockenfield (drums).

The band premiered a snippet from a new song, “Redemption,” from the upcoming release on Eddie Trunk’s radio show on February 22. You can check it out below.

“Queensrÿche is excited to begin writing this next chapter of our career with Century Media,” says bassist Eddie Jackson. “Their passion and love for music has been apparent since early discussions and we are pleased to call them partners on this journey. We are also thankful for all of the fans who have supported us from day one and helped us get to where we are today. Todd, Scott, Parker, Michael and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for each and every one of you.”

Queensrÿche also will head out on their Return to History World Tour in March and April. The tour kicks off on March 5 in Dubuque, Iowa, and makes stops in nine countries, wrapping up April 26 in the Netherlands. The band will take to the high seas on this year’s Monsters Of Rock Cruise and Sweden Rock Cruise. The 23-date trek will make stops in New York, Tennessee and Florida, plus Canada, the UK and Germany. Tickets for all shows are on sale now. Check out all the dates below.

For more about the band, visit queensrycheofficial.com.

RETURN TO HISTORY WORLD TOUR 2013

DATE CITY, STATE VENUE
Mar 5 Dubuque, IA Diamond Jo Casino
Mar 7 Toronto, ON Phoenix Concert Theatre
Mar 8 Englewood, NJ Bergen Performing Arts Center
Mar 9 Jim Thorpe, PA Penn’s Peak
Mar 10 Patchogue, NY The Emporium
Mar 12 Nashville, TN Wildhorse Saloon
Mar 14 Biloxi, MS Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Mar 15 Tampa, FL Ritz Ybor
Mar 16 Fort Lauderdale, FL Monsters Of Rock Cruise
Mar 22 Orlando, FL House Of Blues
Mar 23 Raleigh, NC Longbranch
Mar 30 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Casino
Apr 6 Regina, SK Casino Regina Show Lounge
Apr 11 Stockholm, SWE Sweden Rock Cruise
Apr 13 Oulu, FIN Club Teatria
Apr 14 Mons, BEL Power Prog & Metal Festival @ Lotto Mons Expo
Apr 15 London, UK O2 Academy
Apr 17 Nottingham, UK Rock City
Apr 18 Manchester, UK The Ritz
Apr 19 Dublin, IRE The Academy Dublin
Apr 20 Duisburg, GER Gluckaufhalle
Apr 21 Ludwigsburg, GER Rockfabrik
Apr 23 Aaburg, SWI Moonwalker
Apr 24 Munchen, GER Theaterfabrik
Apr 26 Eindhoven, NET Effennar

Other Confirmed 2013 Tour Dates

DATE CITY, STATE VENUE
Jul 18 Oshkosh, WI Rock USA Festival
Jul 19 Springville, IN ABATE of Indiana “Boogie”
Jul 20 Erie, PA Roar on the Shore Biker Rally
Aug 2 Sturgis, SD The Sturgis Buffalo Chip

Check out “Dark Money” off Kings & Thieves below:

Tate has also revealed plans for a selection of acoustic solo dates on the West Coast, billed as “Geoff Tate and Friends.” Tour dates below.

01/27 Agoura Hills, CA, the Canyon Club
01/28 San Diego, CA, Anthology
01/29 San Juan Capistrano, CA, the Coach House
01/31 Grass Valley, CA, Center for the Arts
01/01 Chico, CA, El Rey
02/02 Napa, CA, Uptown
02/04 Snoqualmie, WA, Finaghty’s

Brink, who will also be performing with In This Moment on the cruise, spoke of her joy at being asked to perform vocals on the 10-minute opus “Suite Sister Mary”: ““I am so excited and grateful for this amazing opportunity to sing with Queensrÿche on the upcoming ShipRocked cruise! All of us in the band are huge Queensrÿche fans, and Geoff Tate is one of the best lead singers in the business. Getting to sing ‘Suite Sister Mary’ off the original Mindcrime album is a huge honor. This is going to be a cruise to remember!”

Queensrÿche frontman Geoff Tate also expressed his anticipation for the band’s second stint upon the cruise. “We’ve always enjoyed performing for our fans in intimate settings and the forthcoming ShipRocked cruise will certainly be one of those occasions. We’re calling this one, ‘Mutiny on the Mindcrime.‘

ShipRocked sets sail from Fort Lauderdale, FL, on November 14, stopping in the Mexican ports of Costa Maya and Cozumel, before returning on November 19.

If you haven’t done so already, you can get a hold of Revolver‘s Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock issue, featuring Maria Brink, by clicking here. You can also pick up the 2012 Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock calendar with a spread featuring Brink here.

Already signed up for the cruise are Queensrÿche, Hellyeah, In This Moment, Another Animal, Filter, Candlebox, Buckcherry, Living Color, Lynam, and Broken Teeth. The boat sets sail from Fort Lauderdale, FL, on November 14, stopping in the Mexican ports of Costa Maya and Cozumel, before returning on November 19.

There will be a chance for a meet and greet with many of the bands on the cruise, including Hinder, as well as the opportunity to take part in the Mustache Bash 2011, a charity auction benefiting Cancer Sucks.

Earlier this month, prog-metal heavyweights Queensrÿche re-released their 1990 album, Empire (Capitol/EMI), with bonus tracks and a live recording of a concert they played around that time in London. The record contained the the Top 10 single “Silent Lucidity,” featuring a string arrangement by Michael Kamen (of Metallica and Pink Floyd fame), which pretty much made the Seattle band ubiquitous until grunge happened. Here, vocalist Geoff Tate and guitarist Michael Wilton reflect on the album.

REVOLVER What do you remember most about writing Empire?
GEOFF TATE We’d just finished the Operation: Mindcrime album and the tour. For me, Empire was about recovering from a really long tour and kind of connecting with the city in which I lived in, so I moved to downtown Seattle; I moved onto a boat. There’s a big lake in downtown Seattle, so I was right in the middle of the city. You could walk to all the restaurants and clubs and whatever, so I was really feeling very “downtown” at that point. And spending a lot of time on the boat and writing a lot of songs, I’d take off for a couple weeks at a time and anchor off some island. We have a million islands around here and sit out there with the tape recorders and the notepad and write.
MICHAEL WILTON Sometime between Operation: Mindcrime and Empire, I came up the riff for “Empire.”

Did you have any ideas what you wanted that album to be?
TATE Yeah. Very strong ideas. We really wanted to make a record of the time, and to kind of deconstruct our sound a bit. We’d write a song then we’d think, What can we do without here? What isn’t  absolutely essential to the song arrangement? And we’d take it out so that what we’d have at the end is just the real basics of what it takes to get that song across.

And we didn’t want to make a concept record. We wanted to make a record that was just a collection of songs. A lot of different topics. But it had to be stripped-down. It had to have a really strong, catchy melody.

Some people think the trilogy of “Jet City Woman,” “Della Brown,” and “Another Rainy Night (Without You)” make up a mini concept album, because of the sound effects. Is that so?
TATE That’s a good urban myth. Can I use that? We’re really big into sound effects, and the idea being that you put the listener into the environment in which the song is taking place.

Did you record the seagulls on “Anybody Listening?” on your boat?
TATE Yeah. We even have a Hitchcock-like appearance by James Barton, our engineer, on that song. He’s one of the last things you hear on the whole record. James Barton talking to himself in the studio.

How did you get the other ambient sound effects?
TATE We had these really cool digital recorders with microphones. We’d go out and walk around and we’d have these microphones strapped to us so people couldn’t see them. And you just walk around and you can capture all kinds of interesting conversation and environmental sounds and seagulls, for example, and people talking and walking by. It’s amazing how much noise is around us at all times. You just kind of get used to it and you blot it out of your mind, but if you listen back to the recording, there’s stuff going on all around you. It’s hardly ever completely quiet.

I read somewhere that you had tried to record an actual drug deal for “Empire.”
TATE Yeah. That didn’t go over too well.

Oh yeah?
TATE Not really. We should put the disclaimer in there.

What inspired “The Thin Line”?
Goeff: Well, a dominatrix in Brussels, I think it was. Are you into S&M, Kory?

I am not. Are you?
TATE Not anymore. Not after Brussels. A little too much for me.

What do you remember about working with Michael Kamen, who did the orchestration on “Silent Lucidity”?
TATE Michael Kamen was just one of the most amazing, creative musicians that ever had been around. He was just an amazing man.
WILTON He’d hear things in his mind that us mere mortals couldn’t even come close to.
TATE And then he’d whip out a piece of scratch paper and write a whole chart on a little 5×7” business card. He’d go, “Go play this. This is gonna be great.” He was a man who really loved life. He loved art and fine food and wine. And whenever he’d see you, he’d always give you a big bear hug. “Oh, how are you?” That kind of thing. And you just felt immediately close to him, right off the bat. He had this really open acceptance about his personality. He really, really got our band. And vice-versa.
We first met him through James Guthrie, our producer for the Warning album, in London. And Michael had just been working on The Wall with Pink Floyd and [futureusgallerythe follow-up to The Wall] The Final Cut. And James said, “I really think that you should listen to this new band I’m working with, Queensrÿche. They’ve got a couple songs on their record that they really want you to listen to and see what you think.” And he ended up composing the orchestration for “Roads to Madness” and a song called “No Sanctuary” on that album. And that started our relationship. That was 1984. And he worked on the Empire album with us, and Operation: Mindcrime, and then we did a really beautiful single for a film, what was that song called, Michael?
WILTON “Real World.”
TATE Yeah, “Real World.” I just never had enough chances to work with him. I could work with that guy every week. He was fantastic to work with.

Is it true that he wrote the orchestration for “Silent Lucidity” overnight?
TATE Yes. In fact, when we had written “Lucidity,” Peter Collins, our producer, didn’t really care for the track. In fact he didn’t even think it should be on the record. And Chris and I really believed in the track. And we were pushing, pushing, pushing for it. And we said, “Look, Peter, wait until you hear what Michael does to this with his orchestration before you make your judgment because we think what he’s got is gonna be really cool.” And finally the tapes came in the mail, and I think Michael was working in England at the time, and we put the tapes up and we’re sitting in the studio listening to what Michael did. It was like, Oh, my God. It was so beautiful. He’d just written the most beautiful melodic lines for that song. When it was over, Peter was sitting there with a big smile on his face. And he says, “OK, I stand corrected. It’s a great track. It’s on the record.”

Interview by Kory Grow