Queen 1 - Legacy Album Review

Queen 1
Legacy Album Review
EMI


A rock n roll debut revels on the turntable as the stylus of the day would run its sensitive pinprick over the slight abstractions of the otherwise flat surfaced vinyl recording. Keep Yourself Alive rings true for all of us, as we are living beings with needs, and these always come first. Before they were famous, they didn't forget this vital truth about remembering who we really are. A classic guitar lick which sounds so familiar to many others, we just know what we're getting and it's a real treat.


The mood turns down a tone, and the balladeering tones of Doing All Right suggest a tender edge to the otherwise hardened and happy living cutting side of their sceptre. A musical score and compositional flow builds into something much more meaty once the initial yoke has been poured. The mood remains but the outward push is that of passion and fire. Anyone who likes the delivery of Meatloaf from the slightly later era, will really understand where this track is coming from, and going to.


A feedback loop starts the next track, only for a moment, but it tells us that the introspectiveness is over. Lyrics about an outlaw and a drumbeat to match the sound of galloping horses mean a much more metal feel can be heard growing from its acorn. Solo fills and fast paced word delivery with wailing key-bends to compliment choruses, a gear change after the centre section and repetitions of curiously haunting passages of new but familiar wordings, everything meets in the middle of our mind and says enjoy.


We're given a demonstration of some miraculous musicianship over the next few bars, as vocals and piano key work harmoniously yet independently to produce a really stunning display of sound. All directions of our audible sensitivities are tested as the short and snappy number rockets past, making way for Liar. Acknowledging the human side and establishing a clear message of no one is perfect, the song pours with affirmations of personal desire to improve self and no longer be a slave to certain vices. It also says a clear and absolute statement that they are on the right side of humanity, and anyone who says otherwise is indeed a liar. Who ever knows the story of Queen will be able to tell which of them managed to undertake this vital journey. I think they all did, in their own way.


When The Night Comes Down, a brief melodic interphase ensures that we're not too far into the clouds that we've forgotten that we're here to express feelings for all and not just about our personal demons. An artist is able to merge the two together quite often, and Queen as a band have done this well with a lot of their work. Again the heat is turned up and only after a few dreary moments of catering for the sullen, the music takes a motorised sense of pace once more. Revs of guitar fuelled engines of rock n roll sweep past like trees on the motorway of sound. We're going faster than those guys, this is Queen in the early days, doing it like no one else before.


Bohemian Rhapsody may be the most famous and internationally played track of theirs, thanks to the classic Wayne's World film, but this album and its finisher, the Seven Seas of Rhye, perhaps make this one of the most in need of rebalancing. So here it is, Queen 1.