New QUEENSRŸCHE vocalist Todd La Torre - who replaces original singer Geoff Tate - is featured in a new interview with Travis Failey at Florida's Rocket Sports & Entertainment. An excerpt is available below:

Travis: What should we be expecting in regard to the sound of the new album? Is it back to the basics or back to the old-school Queensrÿche with a mix of some new material?

Todd: "The new record I would say has – sounds better – better – you know, there’s something that you’d say, hey, that sounds like it could have been off a Rage For Order or this sounds kind of like Mindcrime-ish, or this could be an Empire thing but with a new flavor on it. There’s some new sounds. The guitars – the guitars sound, you know, crunchier. And, you know, Ed’s got his classic bass tone. This is a very organic collaborative body of work that we all wrote. We didn’t say we need somebody to just give us a handful of songs. We did write all our own stuff. I mean, hell, I wrote a guitar solo as just an idea I had, and Michael actually used it and – for an outro melody of one of our songs. Michael Wilton had a whole song and had the melody for it but he didn’t have the lyrics. He came to me and said 'Hey, Todd, check this melody out.' And it’s now one of the best choruses on the whole record.

All of this is a very wonderful, natural, quality piece of music and all of us feel that way. Are we gonna say it’s a balls-to-the-wall heavy album? No. It’s a hard rock record with some metal elements to it. But I would never want to say that it’s a heavy metal record because I don’t want to box in Queensrÿche. I don’t want to box our sound in. If we want to use strings and be orchestrated, we can do that. If I want to scream, till I’m blue in the face, you know, we can do that. If Michael wants to play something really shredding or soft and pretty, we want to have all of those avenues to go down without boxing us into a genre or niche.

Overall, I think it’s a strong record. It’s very true and authentic to us. And we hope that that translates musically to the fans. And everyone here thinks differently. But, overall, I think that people are really gonna like it, and I think it’s a huge deviation from the last couple records. It was only the band writing. There’s no outside influence."

Click here for the complete interview.

Queensrÿche recently signed a new deal with Century Media for the release of their upcoming studio album, which is slated for release on June 10th, 2013 in Europe (June 11th in North America). The album marks the debut album from the lineup comprised of Todd La Torre (vocals), Michael Wilton (guitars), Parker Lundgren (guitars), Eddie Jackson (bass) and Scott Rockenfield (drums).

The band have posted celebratory photos of the band officially completing guitars and bass on the upcoming album. Check them out below:

Queensrÿche are currently focused on its Return To History tour, which began March 5th, and completing the new album.

"Recording is finished. It's that final stage where we mix and we master... It's been quite crazy so we're winding down so we can focus on the final section of the record, which is the artwork and the name and everything else," Rockenfield says.

The band has reteamed with producer James "Jimbo" Barton, who also guided Queensrÿche in the studio for its albums Operation: Mindcrime, Empire and Promised Land, for its latest project.

Queensrÿche album teaser: