QUEEN – Sheer Heart Attack

vote
9.5

• Bands:
  QUEEN
• Duration: 00:38:41
• Available since: 08/11/1974
• Label:

• EMI

It seems almost incredible to write it for a group of Queen’s level, yet the so-called test of the third album, which should confirm or melt like snow in the sun the potential of a band, was also valid for them, way back in 1974.
Just six months earlier, the four had already released their second album, simply “Queen II” (here is our review), an album that had earned them very favorable reviews, but also considerable criticism: a theme that will recur frequently for the Mercury’s band, even at the height of their success, among those who will appreciate their musical skills and attitude, especially live, and those who will never be put off by the more ‘baroque’ component of their music. This, at least, at a critical level, while the public already began to appreciate them more and more in that year; great credit goes to their friends Mott The Hoople, at the time among the great stars of English glam/hard rock, who wanted them by their side during their tour both in the UK and in the United States, ensuring Queen could express themselves in front of a wider audience, experimenting more and more with arrangements and that stage presence that will be among their trademarks. In short, Queen are ready to make the big leap, or at least to try with everything they can put into play, starting with a producer who knows how to guide them both in their little follies and in the right direction to create true radio gems, which at the moment they had not yet arrived; the name chosen is once again that of Roy Thomas Baker, already present in the credits of the first two albums, who here manages to do what Queen needed: the director of the circus, because it is a real party without borders, tacky and very funny, the one that the band delivers from the first notes.
“Brighton Rock” opens with the sounds of a village fair, and the reference is clearly to the coastal town that gathered hordes of young people every weekend, with rivers of alcohol, rides and even several fights between urban tribes, as perfectly evoked from the movie “Quadrophenia”. The homage to the Who is also in the sumptuous guitar of this song, which after the verses in which Freddie naturally enjoys playing both roles of a couple on a trip, explodes with an effected and layered solo, which from that moment becomes almost always the basis for Brian May’s live solos. The tones relax with one of the most famous attacks in their discography, namely the finger snaps and piano of “Killer Queen”. What would become one of their most successful singles, and which would soon pave the way for them to tour Japan and become a total cult, takes up and perfects the band’s more playful side, without lacking a notable edge and, once again , of a great solo by May. After a song each for the two natural leaders of the band, it’s Roger Taylor’s turn to put his hand, and as usual in all the band’s first records, he writes and sings on “Tenement Funster”; after a delicate arpeggio and the entrance of Roger’s amazing, hoarse voice, the song becomes a midtempo hard rock of great charm, less perhaps in the lyrics, in which as always the blond drummer plays on the clichés of rock n’roll life. The song proceeds without interruption in the dark and adrenaline-filled “Flick Of The Wrist”: here the piano explains Mercury’s songwriting, who then completes the medley as an author with “Lily Of The Valley”. A sweet yet cryptic song, which openly quotes “Seven Seas Of Rhye”, but in which Freddie perhaps begins to express his sexual torments, in particular towards his beloved, but “impossible” Mary Austin. The triptych very well confirms the band’s ambition in compositional research, and the delicacy of the last part is a perfect prelude to a new and fundamental rock chapter: we are talking about “Now I’m Here”, another iconic and essential song to say the least , in which Brian pays homage to Mott The Hoople, citing the long months of touring together (“Down in the city, just Hoople and me”) and unconsciously cementing the handover between the two bands in the Olympus of English rock. In a deliberately “schizoid” album, pretentious, but precisely for this reason exhilarating, the rhythms cannot help but slow down again with “In The Lap Of The Gods”, where the vocal stratifications already experimented in “Queen II” return at the beginning, while Mercury, between one chorus and another, then plays with distortions almost worthy of Frank Zappa. What can we say next about “Stone Cold Crazy”? Overdrive, a speed metal riff 10 years early, but with a typical Queen circus touch… simply, a pleasure. The song, which Metallica resumed a few years later with excellent results, actually dates back to 1969, so much so that no one remembered who had composed it, or who had limited himself to arranging his own instrument: thus the tendency towards collective authorship was born of the songs, which would characterize Queen’s discography in the 1980s. “Dear Friends” is little more than an interlude for piano and voice, almost a lullaby in May’s typical style – although sung by Mercury – while on “Misfire” John Deacon takes on the burden/honor of compose a song, with a nice mix between the vocalizations and the surf tone of the Beach Boys, and a rhythm that is certainly more Albion’s daughter, in particular on the northern soul front. “Bring Back That Leroy Brown” takes us to the twenties, between woo-woo, ukulele and almost crazy vocal games: one of the most apparently silly pieces, but as always adorable and with a perfect arrangement, in particular for the great work on the double bass by John: in the end, among the greats of rock, only Queen had the courage to include such unlikely pieces in their records for years, and to play it more than 200 times, even live. In “She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettoes)” the hand of Brian May is again recognizable from afar, even if the acoustic guitar placed in the background and the elegiac work on Freddie’s voice make it a piece almost worthy of the Canterbury scene , a prog with a bare bones structure, but very intense. “In The Lap Of The Gods (Revisited)” takes up only the title of the song that opened side B, amplifying its epic sense, which explodes on a chorus that makes it the natural “godmother” of “We Are The Champions” and of those arena song in the strictest sense of the term that Freddie loved to sing to metaphorically copulate with his audience.
We said from the first lines that Queen, especially among metalheads, have always divided the public between enthusiastic admirers and furious critics, and certainly a record so multifaceted and not devoted to riffs is particularly criticisable. It will not be a coincidence if, in the constant subtext of mockery that characterizes his (now distant) interviews, the histrionic Mike Patton only cited this album as the English rock album that he admitted to loving. Yet, if just a year later Queen will come out with that monsters of “A Night At The Opera” – but also, to follow, with its mirror-image twin “A Day At The Races” -, it is also and above all because the thirteen tracks of “Sheer Heart Attack” confirmed him to be able to play with every sound and sonority, just for the fun of it, but it also made them more aware of what could entertain the public in their increasingly frequent and incendiary concerts. And on this front, just to underline the value of the album with some statistics, well: it’s the album from which they’ve played the most songs, the most times, in their history. It must mean something, right?