A DAY AT THE RACES

After having reached the peak of a gigantic mountain and thus enjoying an unprecedented and wide general recognition as a result of the hugely successful "A Night at the Opera" and their imperishable "Bohemian Rhapsody", staying at the top was a titanic task for Queen. But the adrenaline-fueled Freddie Mercury and his unmatched ability to rise above any circumstance, backed by the cerebral guitarist Brian May and the always correct Roger Taylor and John Deacon, took the challenge calmly and with great confidence. Their next album, "A Day at the Races" reflects that, the band's confidence and decision to continue experimenting beyond any pigeonhole, something that greatly motivated Mercury and inspired his bandmates.

And so it is that from the hard rocker "Tie Your Mother Down" and its guitar intro with martial airs, the introspective and naked ballad "You Take My Breath Away", the vaudevillian "Millionaire Waltz" and its explosive intermission to pure roar and "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy ", to the distorted "Drowse" sung by Taylor, Queen shows in "A Day at the Races" the versatility of which they are capable, incorporating to their proposal nuances and a varied palette of colors, printing their particular and unique style.

And the icing on the cake is the intense and gospel-like "Somebody To Love", with its enormous choral wall built by Mercury, May and Taylor, the best of the album without a doubt, which shares honors with the little diffused but melodically impeccable "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)", a beautiful hymn that includes choruses in Japanese, surely thought to be chanted live, but that did not have all the luck it deserved.

True, "A Day at the Races" is not another "A Night at the Opera", but for a younger brother, it did quite well.

3.5/4 stars