The best Queen album since '76, arriving when no one expected them to make a truly valid and worthy pop record anymore, just at the final rush of Mercury, a step away from the end. The title track is beautiful and one of the best songs of their entire career, "Don't Try so Hard" follows closely behind, Mercury is often majestic (maybe helped by studio tricks and post-production, because it seems he was quite in bad shape, but still majestic) and above all his interpretations are, for obvious reasons, more vibrant and heartfelt than ever. Even the less successful and more pandering tracks (this time a minority) closer to the rubbish of the previous decade, never reach those depths, while most of the songs are well-crafted pop, dignified, pleasant, well-made, with some really good pieces. The only clunker is the one with the cat; the guitar purring is fine (after all, Belew let the whole zoo loose with his guitar) but there’s a limit to trash. Of course, here and there, the melancholic specter of Mercury’s end looms; this is the "mature" album by Queen. One of the best Queen albums and also the one with the coolest artwork of all, almost a sublimation of their former nature as flamboyant glam-rock-poppers who never took themselves too seriously.
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