Queen
Queen II

THE REVIEW

If you think Queen is all about Another One Bites The Dust and Radio Gaga, you're really off track: listen to this absolute masterpiece, and you'll realize: "Queen II" is a record full of hard rock and baroque, surreal, and fairy-tale atmospheres, which, along with their nearly equally fabulous debut album, represents the greatest work of this controversial band.

The album opens with the solemn instrumental intro Procession (note how Iron Maiden took the idea for The Ides Of March) which flows into the baroque and captivating hard rock of Father To Son, which is a bit of the quintessence of early Queen sound, with the overdubs and vocal interplays that elevate the song to excellent levels. Also noteworthy is the complex and elaborate guitar solo. Father To Son fades at the end and transforms into the poignant ballad White Queen, intense and passionate yet dreamlike at the same time, with a very intense performance by the great Freddie Mercury. Some Day One Day is instead a folk ballad sung by guitarist Brian May (a bit dull in this instance) neither remarkable nor blameworthy. Better is The Loser In The End, where the singing drummer Roger Taylor raises the level of this fine hard-rock with an ironic and bittersweet lyric. This marks the end of the good White Side and begins the magnificent Black Side, which opens with the distorted riff of Ogre Battle, crowned by a truly epic and inspired Freddie Mercury, who narrates a battle of ogres, thus introducing the fairy-tale theme into the album.

The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke is truly a blast, a magical weave of overdubs and visionary atmospheres that evoke strange characters from who knows what parallel world. Nevermore is a wonderful, intense, and unrepeatable "pocket ballad" (the same Queen tried to do something similar in the next album "Sheer Heart Attack" with Dear Friends and the result was a total flop) that preludes The March Of The Black Queen, an inspired, wild vision rich in constant time changes that deliver continuous surprises and never tire, ending with a breathtaking choral finale. Personally, I consider it Queen's masterpiece, even more than "Bohemian Rhapsody." Funny How Love Is is better skipped to get straight to the famous ride Seven Seas Of Rhye, which closes the album in the most intense and epic way possible.

There remains the frustration of thinking what a band with such potential could have done if they had continued down this path (even though truthfully, all albums from "Sheer Heart Attack" to "Jazz" deserve respect and consideration).