After Queen II was released the band went on tour again, and unfortunately their trip was cut short as Brian May fell ill. That afforded Queen the opportunity to write songs and get back into the studio. Sheer Heart Attack, Queen’s third album, was the band’s second release of 1974. Much of the album has a much more “traditional” hard rock approach, and this is where Queen really begins to develop their sound into what they are best known for.
Partly due to May’s hospitalization Sheer Heart Attack was recorded in multiple studios over a period of time. A focus on tighter songwriting built upon the studio techniques the band worked out for their last two albums helped Sheer Heart Attack become what could be considered the first “classic” sounding Queen album.
Opening with carnival sounds “Brighton Rock” is a classic Queen track about young love set to a hard rock tune, signalling the band’s use of the studio and helping to create an atmosphere that would come to further fruition with their next album. Yes, the song goes on a bit longer than necessary, but it still is a damn good album opener. Next on the album is “Killer Queen” the band’s first hit, and it is easy to see why, with clean crisp musicality, the vocal harmony is fantastic, and of course Mercury’s lead vocal is great only to be matched by May’s guitar work.
The band then played around with segues, and the next three songs would blend and fade into each other, almost creating a medley. This is another technique that would be used again in some future albums to further effect. On their own, these three songs are decent, but because they flow into each other so well, they are elevated to be better and don’t drag the album down.
Closing out the first side is a fairly standard May rocker, “Now I’m Here” back when albums had two sides. Opening the second side is a more fantasy-tinged number by Mercury, “In The Lap Of The Gods” which features a slower pace, some piano and falsetto, only to be followed up by the very hard rocking “Stone Cold Crazy” and it is almost enough to give the listener whiplash.
Then veering wildly again in another direction is the rather short “Dear Friends” at just over a minute, mostly a piano ballad, it takes longer to talk about it than it does to hear it. Mercury offers up his ode to old-timey musical numbers with “Bring Back That Leroy Brown” which offers up another change of direction after Deacon’s “Misfire” – this second side of the album is doing a fantastic job of showcasing the wide range of influences and capabilities of the band.
May then sings on his own composition, the guitar ballad “She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettos)” which again shows off a bit of the studio trickery the band was beginning to master. Closing out the album is “In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited” which has nothing to do with the earlier tune that I can tell.
Essentially, Sheer Heart Attack could be considered the first “Queen” album, as it finally contains all of the elements one associates with the band. Buried underneath the studio trickery, the phenomenal guitar work, the vocal harmonies, the wildly differing musical styles, there are some fantastic songs.