QUEEN

The debut Queen album is their most straightforward and least eclectic work dominated by hard rock. Mercury could sing with great intensity and had a high vocal range. May uses mainly riffs and fewer soloing than later in the career. Naturally, because as music was becoming more mellow, there wasn't much space for heavy riffing. All May guitar ingredients are already here though including melodic playing, guitar harmonies and a distinguishable sound. After the first hard work workout, we face a ballad which turns into an intensive Zeppelin-like riffing like a short storm before the clouds disappear.

"Great king rat" has a march-like rhythm, quite a basic fundamental melody. The track is quite long and dominated by the guitar which plays quite refreshing licks. Mercury shows off his compositional skills, ornate singing and piano support on"My fairy king" which hints at their majestic mid 70's period. Taylor has provided his highly-pitched vocal well suitable for heavy metal however it's with "Liar" where his drumming becomes remarkable, I like his hi-hat work and sound here. Besides, he applies quite various beats throughout this lengthy song greatly supported by raw sounding May's guitar. "The night comes down" is a curious subdued guitar starting track which first sounds like an instrumental jam. The track is superbly constructed, one of its motives could classify it as the first potential Queen anthem.

Taylor unleashes his power on his penned "Modern times rock'n'roll" that could compete with any heavy metal output back then in terms of intensity. His vocal is distinguishable and yet emotional. Considering its lack of good melody, it still remains arguably the least memorable track here. The generic "Son and daughter" fares slightly better. I like guitar effects and vocal harmonies better than the generic riff motive.

"Jesus" is noteworthy for its lyrics, walking bridge and guitar madness in the second half of the song.

Overall this is a great rocking debut with a potential for more diversity and very little to be found for proggers.

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