I had this many years ago on cassette, taped from a friend's copy of the album (piracy is killing music...) and it’s interesting how the poor quality of the recording affected how I saw this album – I don’t remember it being much of a favourite of mine among the Queen ouevre. On the other hand, although I could only call to mind the tune of the track Seven Seas Of Rhye from all of the track titles, once I started listening it all came flooded back, so I must have listened to it a few times for it to go in.
Returning to it, the influences of Led Zeppelin feel quite strong, especially on the predominantly Brian May written “White Side” i.e. Side One. The opening track, Father And Son, in particular, call to mind the Zeppelin motif of slower quieter parts descending into heavy guitar – probably the heaviest guitar work that May does for the group, using grungier sounds than the distinctive warm sounds of his homemade guitar (the "Red Special") played with a sixpence as a plectrum. The fantasy elements beloved of Jimmy Page are also present, in White Queen (“daughter of the willow queen”). The White Side is rounded off by the only track on the album written by drummer Roger Taylor, and you can tell by the way it starts with an opening percussion section; here, Taylor seems to be inspired by Zeppelin’s John Bonham as well.
Although this isn’t a concept album exactly, there’s a loose theme – White Queen is echoed on the “Black Side” (i.e. Side Two) by The March Of The Black Queen, a much more proggy and complex track by Freddie Mercury (who writes all the Black Side tracks), veering between high vocals and piano accompaniment turning suddenly into crashing guitars and the blended over-tracked vocals that make the characteristic Queen sound. In that, Black Queen feels a bit like a practice run for Bohemian Rhapsody.
Further fantasy elements include the heavy guitar-driven Ogre Battle, and the lighter and slightly vaudevillian Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke, inspired by the Richard Dadd painting of the same name. Once again there is a tenuous link to my Appendix N series, since I referred to Dadd’s painting when discussing the writing of Lord Dunsany. This album, however, reminds me more of ER Eddison’s The Worm Ouroborous. I don’t know why, exactly. A battle between light and dark where it's hard to tell who is which, and nothing changes by the end, perhaps.
Listening to the album while knowing where Queen are heading, musically, this really does feel like an interim step as they develop their sound (even Mercury’s voice seems to lack the power that he gets later on). It’s good, especially the May tracks. But there’s just a trifle too much production on it, like they didn’t know when to stop. Later work, although big and operatic sometimes, also has a measure of restraint so that it is big enough, and no more.
I mentioned reviewer Robert Christgau before. His review for this album was “wimpoid royaloid heavyoid android void”. I was wondering for a while whether I ought to make these entries a bit more polished – I tend to write them based on my immediate after thoughts and tidy up some of the rambling, but I make no attempts to do clever wordplay or structure. In fact, I think when one makes oneself more important than the thing one is reviewing, then one fails as a reviewer. And Christgau’s little capsule isn’t even clever wordplay, it’s just sticking “-oid” on the end of words. What does “android void” even mean? That’d be more fitting for sparse electronica. It’s not even that I’m offended because this is my favourite ever album and he’s slagging it off – it isn’t, and I'm not, as hopefully you can tell from my commentary. I kind of hope he’s embarrassed by how cheap and amateur that is.
Anyway, I’m kind of amused by how much of a dislike I’ve conceived for the man; perhaps Wikipedia does him a disservice by only publishing his snottiest comments. He loved the last Brian Eno, but it still felt like it was his “cleverness” that the review was about, not the album.
This album – I saw another comment that it’s where Led Zeppelin meets Yes. It kind of is. Not Queen's best, certainly better than I remember. I had a good time with it.
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