Although not a great success at the time, Queen’s 1973 debut had
\ncreated a stir. Their sophomore release would add more fuel to
\ntheir fire, scoring them a supporting gig with Mott The Hoople on
\ntheir American tour that would lead to even more exposure in the
\nstates. Back home in the U.K., They got even bigger with a little
\nhelp from an unlikely single, the hard-rocking “Seven Seas OF
\nRhye,” which would reach #10, driving the album itself to reach #5
\non the British charts.<\/p>\n
Queen’s beautifully bizarre mix of musical influences is no less
\nbizarre on this outing. The album has two distinctively different
\nsides, Brian May pens all but one track of side one, with Roger
\nTaylor filling in the last slot. Side two, is exclusively the
\nterritory of Freddie Mercury compositions, featuring lyrically
\ndense songs steeped in fantasy and mythology.<\/p>\n
Side one starts off with some throwaway instrumental doodling on
\n“Procession” which introduces the tasty power-balled, “Father To
\nSon.” “Father To Son” is classic Queen, with it’s soaring
\ninstrumentation, punctuated with the great vocal harmonies Queen is
\nknown for. Although it does suffer from excessive repetitions of
\nthe chorus at the end, it’s still a solid track. Next up, “White
\nQueen (As It Began)” is pleasant little tune that sounds OK, but it
\ndoesn’t really engage me and doesn’t go anywhere except to slow the
\nmood down nicely to segue into the next track. Guitarist Brian May
\npulls a rare lead vocal on “Some Way One Day,” an acoustic ballad.
\nMay’s wispy tenor fits very nicely with the acoustic arrangement of
\nthis song. Drummer Roger Taylor closes side one, providing lead
\nvocals on his ode to good ol’ mum, “Loser In The End.” Taylor’s
\ngravely garage-band growl is perfect accompaniment for the gritty
\nblues laid down by May and bassist John Deacon.<\/p>\n
Side two is where things get strange. Enjoyable to be sure, but
\nMercury’s mythology drenched fantasy trips have mystified me for
\nmany years. According to legend, Mercury created a fantasy based
\nmythology that assimilates bits of Greek and Druidic myths, fairy
\ntales, Shakespeare and who knows what else. Allegedly there’s a
\ncommon thread within Mercury’s compositions throughout the entire
\nQueen catalog that amounts to a collective set of songs telling the
\nhistory of this mythology.<\/p>\n
True or not I don’t know, but the songs on side two are cool,
\nand the first five songs do amount to what is basically a suite
\nabout all manner of fantastical characters. Ogres, fairies, and an
\nevil Queen make up just part of the cast. Mercury’s lyrical fantasy
\ntrip is sung with many different voices (most of the them
\nFreddie’s), and at all manner of different time signatures. The
\nvariation in instrumental and vocal themes within the individual
\ntracks give the songs a much deeper texture and color that if they
\nhad been sung in standard rock fashion. Starting with the heavy
\n“Ogre Battle” the songs meld into essentially one long track,
\ncontinuing through the hyper-kinetic “The Fairy Feller’s Master
\nStroke,” into the more peaceful “Nevermore” and the menacing “March
\nOf The Black Queen,” and finishing up with the oddly out of place
\nballad “Funny How Love Is,” which doesn’t seem to fit in with the
\nfirst four tracks. The songs don’t really break until the final
\ntrack, the aforementioned “Seven Seas Of Rhye.”<\/p>\n
Sonically, the production sounds a little thin and lacking in
\nbottom, but the propensity for ultra-high vocals and May’s style of
\nplaying tend to drive their music into those upper registers.
\nThat’s doesn’t prevent it from being a very good album. I have
\nalways found this a great listen, and an overlooked gem of the
\nperiod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":25859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5633],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38127","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-queen","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38127"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38127"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}