Queen - Queen II (1974)

Tracklist:
1. Procession
2. Father to Son
3. White Queen (As it Began)
4. Some Day One Day
5. The Loser in the End
6. Ogre Battle
7. The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke
8. Nevermore
9. The March of the Black Queen
10. Funny How Love Is
11. Seven Seas of Rhye



The Early Masterpiece – 9,5/10

After getting to know the band with their first LP, they strike relentlessly with their second self-titled album, leaving us no chance not to get into their music. Though the album was pretty underrated at the time of release and didn’t contain any great hit singles, perhaps apart from the full version of “Seven Seas of Rhye”, it’s been looked upon as a true Queen classic now. It’s easily Queen on their most progressive moment, featuring high quality compositions with enough hooks, surprises and geniality to keep you fascinating even after too many spins. Radically spoken, this might be the best Queen album ever.

The album has been nicely divided into two parts. Though lending their names to the old LP sides, Side White and Side Black are true opposites. White contains compositions with a more positive theme and more gentle songs, all but one of which are composed by Brian May. We even get to hear his voice on the acoustic “Some Day One Day”. His voice is a lot sweeter than both Mercury’s and Taylor’s, and is actually quite nice to listen to in a pause between the more present voices of the other two singers. His other compositions are more complex in sound and feature Mercury’s voice (except for the instrumental “Procession”, which is an intro to the album). “Father to Son” is an epic-driven song of quite a length, but it will pass by like any other. From beginning to end it keeps the drive going and the chorus is really epic. The highlight is obviously May’s solo. There’s some trademark Queen multi-tracking with voices in the interplay. In the end it flows over to “White Queen (As it began)”, which is another great piece. It starts off gently with May arpeggiating some chords and with Mercury gently singing with lots of emotion. In the chorus May comes in with his heavy distortion guitar, thus making it a great powerballad, again with a great guitar-solo. Side White ends with the Taylor-sung “The Loser in the End”, a relaxing rock song about children leaving their parents’ homes. Taylor has a great voice for this kind of relaxing rock tracks.

Side Black on the other hand is a lot darker and heavier with more dark fantasy-related themes and solely Mercury-penned tracks. From the heavy but melodic “Ogre Battle” all the way to the full rendition of previous LP’s “Seven Seas of Rhye”, we are bombarded with catchy melodies, pleasant surprises and heavy riffs. A highlight of this side is definitely the fast and raw “Ogre Battle”, which begins with a mirrored heavy riff, first played backwards then flows over into the forward version with most melodic verses. After the last sound of the gong it flows over to “The Fairy Feller’s Master-stroke”, which is our next highlight. This one is considerably less heavy, but faster and very melodic, though it quickly descends into a mid-paced song. The next track “Nevermore” is one I consider to be part of the “Fairy Feller” track, but is a short piano ballad with some great emotional vocals. Then we have “March of the Black Queen”, which is in many ways a sort of prototype of the to-be-written “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Also a real opposite of “White Queen”, “Black Queen” takes us with heavy riffing and march-like melodies and rhythms on a journey of many dark themes, with great performance by all members. Also very well audible are the vocals of Taylor, May and Mercury, all multi-tracked enough times to form a big choir. This track is arguably one of the best tracks Queen ever recorded.

In short, we have a very adventurous and progressive early Queen album with Queen II. They are now more familiar with composing great songs, but have not yet fallen into the tempting trap of the charts. This album is pure Queen and would never be equaled with future releases, although some come really close. This album is a must-have for anyone daring to call him-/herself a Queen fan.

Strongest tracks: “White Queen (As it Began)”, “Ogre Battle”, “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke” and “The March of the Black Queen”.