{"id":38129,"date":"2004-10-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/sheer-heart-attack\/"},"modified":"2004-10-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-10-13T00:00:00","slug":"sheer-heart-attack","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/sheer-heart-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheer Heart Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The best thing about Queen albums is that they are all over the map.<\/p>\n<p>One never knows what to expect. A piledriving rocker can be paired with a show-stopping Broadway number, which can be followed by an acoustic ballad and then a disco song. It&#8217;s one of the things that makes this band so hard to categorize and so fun to review, and it only could have happened in the &#8217;70s.<\/p>\n<p>Before &#8220;Bohemian Rhapsody&#8221; and &#8220;Another One Bites the Dust,&#8221; though, Queen was essentially a hard-progressive-rock band.  <i>Sheer Heart Attack<\/i> showcases what the band would soon become while giving a nod to their hard-rock past, serving not only as an important transition album but a fun listen as well.<\/p>\n<p>Freddie Mercury opens with a falsetto in the driving &#8220;Brighton Rock,&#8221; which careens from majestic vocal harmonies &#8212; a hallmark of the band &#8212; to Rush-like instrumental interplay on the verses. Other highlights on the first side include the hit &#8220;Killer Queen,&#8221; a perfect little rock song with a calculated guitar solo and Broadway-like vocals; the  <i>White Album-<\/i>esque leftover &#8220;Tenement Funster&#8221; and &#8220;Now I&#8217;m Here,&#8221; which should be familiar to every Queen fan, what with the vocals jumping around on both sides of the speakers and an understated intro that gives way to a sonic assault that would make any rock band proud.<\/p>\n<p>Queen somehow manages to sound like every rock band of the &#8217;70s on here, including Rush, Zeppelin and even Uriah Heep (&#8220;In the Lap of the Gods&#8221;). The difference is that Queen actually tries to be pretentious and bombastic, and often times they are so over the top one can&#8217;t help but be entertained. But again this band manages to surprise, especially on the second side &#8212; the bombastic &#8220;Lap&#8221; gives way into the excellent, kinetic heavy-metal-foreshadow &#8220;Stone Cold Crazy,&#8221; while the hymn-like &#8220;Dear Friends&#8221; gives way into the pleasant acoustic of &#8220;Misfire.&#8221; And although the vocals are a bit annoying on &#8220;She Makes Me,&#8221; the echo on the drums and guitar is too catchy to ignore.<\/p>\n<p>The filler tracks here are still better than anything Queen created in the &#8217;80s, even if the lyrics don&#8217;t always make much sense, and the band&#8217;s instrumental work rivals anything put out in 1974. This is not Queen&#8217;s best album, but it&#8217;s their most fun and showcases everything they did right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":26841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5633],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38129","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-queen","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38129","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38129"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38129"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}