QUEEN II

Wow. What a great album. Having previously only owned their greates hits collection, I did not know to expect such a powerful series of songs from this band, who I only knew to perform catchy rock anthems, abyssmal pop songs... and Bohemian Rhapsody. But this is something different.

'Procession' opens the album with some kind of royal march, very fitting for a band called Queen. The the album really kicks off with the storming 'Father to Son' a powerful heavy rock song boasting the full range of Freddies vocal ability. Then things are slowed down with the subtle and sad 'White Queen (As it Began)'. This song encompasses many beautiful melodies and a tale of loss and heartache. 'Someday One Day' is a song sung by Brian May in a style that was sure to influence the devolopment of the power ballad. Except this song is not the slightest bit cheesy like the power ballads of the 80s. 'Loser in the End' is sung by Roger Taylor, and proves his shills as a vocalist as well as a drummer. This fits in with Queen's catchy rock anthems, and is criminally underrated as such. 'Ogre Battle', though is where the real MAGIC of this album starts. This is without a doubt heavy metal, but still very accessible. The screams about midway are particularly effective. 'The Fairy-Fellers Master Stroke continues in the fantasy vein and manages to sound very grandiose and whimsical at the same time. This song is an amazing acheivement considering it is so short. But not as short as the next song, 'Nevermore', a very tragically ending love song. This serves as good contrast getting ready for the masterpiece, 'March of the Black Queen'. This is an absolutely amazing song and certainly my favourite by Queen. It changes moods quite a lot from angry to subtle to defiant. It has as many changes as a lot of well loved progressive side long epics, in less than seven minutes. After such a powerful track we have a bit of relief with 'Funny How Love Is', the most po-oriented song on the record, wit hints of an African rythm. Good stuff. The album ends with the classic 'Seven Seas of Rhye', another fantasy based song in which Freddy shows us some of his more interesting lyrics.

What else can I say? This album is amazing. If you don't have it you should be told that this is indeed a progressive rock album, and fits in well on this site as a mixture of the symphonic prog and the heavy prog sub genres. Now go and buy it.