{"id":41269,"date":"2008-12-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/back-to-the-light\/"},"modified":"2008-12-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-20T00:00:00","slug":"back-to-the-light","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/back-to-the-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Back To The Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0By the mid-\u201890s, the remaining members of Queen were at a creative crossroads following Freddie Mercury\u2019s death, which would seem to resolve itself by the millennium when guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor reclaimed the Queen banner with Paul Rodgers at the mic. But before all that came a string of solo efforts, though I have to say that between the two dethroned Queens — bassist John Deacon has professed that he can\u2019t hold a tune \u2013 Brian May\u2019s two albums, particularly this one (his first), fare better than Roger Taylor\u2019s synth-laden catalogue, which dates itself a little too quickly.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

What May has on his side from his Queen days are not only his inimitable guitar sound on his handmade Red Special guitar — lushly layered and able to veer from stomping rock anthems to elegant ballads — but his lyrical sensitivity, whether he\u2019s paying ode to fat bottomed girls or to an imagined sister (\u201cSail Away Sweet Sister\u201d). But May\u2019s solo material retains much of the Queen signature, which, in a word, is bigness: big harmonies, big guitar licks, big anthemic choruses. You almost expect Freddie Mercury\u2019s voice to come pouring out of the monitors, which can work to May\u2019s disadvantage here. Don\u2019t get me wrong, May has a lovely, emotive voice. It\u2019s sort of like crystal being tapped with a silver fork — high, ringing, clear, albeit somewhat frail. But lovely can have a tough time selling driving rock rhythms. Just check out lead single \u201cDriven By You.\u201d all of the essentials are there, from thick guitars to barreling drums courtesy of legendary Cozy Powell (Black Sabbath, The Jeff Beck Group, Rainbow, among others), and May handles it well, but you still can\u2019t help but imagine Mercury taking over the reins. \u00a0<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Still, a lot of Back To The Light <\/i>is top-notch. \u201cToo Much Love Will Kill you,\u201d for one, is absolutely brilliant. It was reworked with Mercury on vocals for Queen\u2019s final curtain call, 1995\u2019s Made In Heaven<\/i>, but hands down, May owns this. A subtle piano backing really allows his fragile, lovelorn voice to shine, and the lyrics are truly killer, too, precise yet aching in their intimacy: \u201cHow would it be if you were standing in my shoes? \/ Can\u2019t you see that it\u2019s impossible to choose \/ No, there\u2019s no making sense of it \/ Every way I go I\u2019m bound to lose,\u201d he sings, and it\u2019s easy to see why this one hit #5 on the UK singles chart, topping even Queen\u2019s version. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Also worth a mention are \u201cLast Horizon,\u201d a purely instrumental, perfect encapsulation of the patented May guitar sound (not to mention the solid rhythm section backing) and \u201cNothin\u2019 But Blue,\u201d an atmospheric stunner with its swirling guitars, hazy drums and bass, and May\u2019s rising, evocative vocals. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

And May manages to hold his own on the thickly-guitared and rocking title track, which features a soaring, orchestral Red Special break that\u2019s signature Brian May. Following years battling depression through Mercury\u2019s illness and the devastating demise of Queen itself, May coming out on the other side to pen this chorus — \u201cBack to the streets that are paved with gold \/ Back to the light \/ Back to the land where the sunshine heals my soul\u201d — is a triumph, and it\u2019s likely this inextricable connection with the material he\u2019s singing that gives him the mettle to hit these crunching, upbeat rhythms straight out of the park. \u201cResurrection\u201d is solid as well and ramped up even more with barreling drums, frantic vocals, and searing riffs. It\u2019s insistent and in your face, and all the more memorable for it. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

A couple songs do falter: \u201cLet Your Heart Rule Your Head,\u201d for its rousing, country-tinged instrumentation, is trite (and the female backing vocals don\u2019t do much to help), while \u201cI\u2019m Scared\u201d spends too much time navel-gazing and May\u2019s vocal strain is particularly evident in parts. And \u201cLove Token\u201d again muddies up some excellent riffing with its cheesiness, telling the tale of a lover\u2019s quarrel (\u201cMama\u2019s makin\u2019 heat to keep the old fire smokin\u2019 \/ Papa\u2019s hangin\u2019 on to his old love token\u201d) that has May at one point playing the parts of both Mama and Papa as they snipe at each other. It worked better as \u201cTie Your Mother Down.\u201d<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Though May truly shone as one-fourth of the indomitable Queen unit, he still does pretty well for himself on Back To The Light. <\/i>There\u2019s no question that he\u2019s a brilliant songwriter and, of course, axeman, and that\u2019s still clear here, but May also proves that he\u2019s got the vocal chops. He\u2019s not Mercury, but he doesn\u2019t need to be (then again, who could ever be Freddie Mercury?). And there\u2019s a sincerity in these tracks, an incisive honesty, that makes Brian May all the more endearing and ultimately so relatable. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8308],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41269","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-brian-may","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41269","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41269"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}