Queen - Sheer Heart Attack (1974)

Tracklist:
1. Brighton Rock
2. Killer Queen
3. Tenement Funster
4. Flick of the Wrist
5. Lily of the Valley
6. Now I'm Here
7. In the Lap of the Gods
8. Stone Cold Crazy
9. Dear Friends
10. Misfire
11. Bring Back That Leroy Brown
12. She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettos)
13. In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited

Slowly Breaking Through – 8/10

With Queen II they slowly came into the picture, but Sheer Heart Attack opened the world for them with grand hit “Killer Queen”. This album was in style quite groundbreaking though quite similar to Queen II, featuring trademark hard rock songs combined with a proggy touch. The thing, however, that separated Sheer Heart Attack from its predecessors is the more poppy touch to some songs like “Bring Back That Leroy Brown” and “Misfire”. Though I’d rather have them stay in the hard rock scene I can’t blame them for choosing the big pop audience on later releases.

The album begins very powerfully with the powerful hard rock riff of “Brighton Rock” combined with Mercury’s falsetto vocals. Yet it is already a lot more accessible than Queen II material. Second track “Killer Queen” scored a big hit for the lads from Great Britain, and it’s understandable why. The song has a lot less of the heaviness, but no less of the catchiness and brilliantness of the melodies. Add a great guitar solo by May to that and you have a terrific song. The beauty of this album is the diversity of it. Where we had the two very different opening tracks, tracks three, four and five are this album’s magnum opus. Basically it’s a long song divided into three parts. The first is the Taylor-sung “Tenement Funster”, which is less heavy than it would’ve been on Queen II, but adds a great relaxing song to the album and is definitely one of early Queen’s highlights. Taylor has got such a powerful raw voice and it gives great contrast with May’s sweeter voice and Mercury’s clear voice. Part two is “Flick of the Wrist” and is a mysterious track with a fast-paced chorus, but contains more of those catchy melodies. Then the opus ends with the gentle “Lily of the Valley”. Live classic rocker “Now I’m Here” and metal song “Stone Cold Crazy” are two more highlights with great catchy riffs.

There’s some material I’d rather not have, though. “Dear Friends” is a short ballad interlude, followed by another short interlude “Misfire”, a happy pop song, and that one is followed by yet another interlude “Bring Back That Leroy Brown”. These three shorts songs are not truly awful tracks, with the exception of “Bring Back...”, but totally kill the power of the album. This “Bring Back...” song is a want-to-be-funny type of song that Queen will make more of in the 70s, and those are quite annoying. But all these short songs don’t add to the album, they just stop it. And then they are followed by “She Makes Me” to make the remainder of the listeners fall asleep right away. It’s a very gentle ballad, sung by May, and consists mainly of this acoustic chord-riff, which in itself is not bad, but the execution of it serves better as a lullaby than anything else. Luckily we have a very satisfying end to the album with “In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited”. The first version is an odd but good song with odd low vocals by Mercury, but the revisited version is nothing alike. This is a gentle song with an epic feel to it and a massive stadium chorus which would make a good live classic and bares some resemblance to the later “We are the Champions”, but is way better than that overrated hit.

To end this relatively short review, I can say Sheer Heart Attack is a great album, with unfortunately an emergency stop somewhere in the middle. It is possible to overlook those songs though, and thus enjoy the good side of the album. I’d highly recommend this album to anyone who wants something of Queen, though if you’re keen on hits, you may want to wait for later albums.

Strongest tracks: “Killer Queen”, “Tenement Funster” and “In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited”.
Weakest tracks: “Bring Back That Leroy Brown” and “She Makes Me”.

Kayak - Kayak II (1974)

Tracklist:
1. Alibi
2. Wintertime
3. Mountain Too Rough
4. They Get to Know Me
5. Serenades
6. Woe and Alas
7. Mireille
8. Trust in the Machine
9. His Master's Noise
10. We Are Not Amused [*]



It’s becoming serious now – 6,5/10

Having released such an odd debut album with See See the Sun, Kayak wanted to develop a less playful sound and be more serious and so they released their second LP without a title. They also had a great hit with “Wintertime” and they also had lengthy songs, just like on their previous album, yet there is a huge difference. This album is way less catchy at first glance and it sounds way better organized, though they are still needing to discover their new sound to the full. Though the album is filled with great tunes, it has some true moments that really sound uninspired. That’s a shame, because that is the downfall of this release.

Where See See the Sun was more of a playful release and very much trying to be progressive, Kayak II is a mere shadow of that. This is still being progressive in the good ol’ way of odd rhythms and time signatures combined with decent length, but Kayak is going for a change here. As we see on later albums, they are developing a short progressive pop style featuring short length prog songs with a more serious approach. Kayak II, however, is not yet fully dubbed into this new Kayak sound and therefore is an interesting record. Though this album features quite straightforward rock attempts with “Alibi” and “Serenades”, long epics like “They Get to Know Me” and “Trust in the Machine” are clear remains of the previous album. Gentle ballads like “Mountain Too Rough” and “His Master’s Noise” certainly remind of the upcoming “Royal Bed Bouncer” and “The Last Encore” releases with their refined and extremely catchy vocal melodies. However, tracks like “Woe and Alas” are mediocre at best with their odd and not-catchy tunes. But since both tunes flow along with the album, I guess we can forgive Kayak this.

Where Kayak lose themselves is the silent parts. Though some are good to listen to, such as the verses of “They Get to Know Me”, the break is downright boring with its silent arpeggios by some synth-ish instrument. It takes quite some time before it evolves into the good not great guitar solos at the back. No wonder that song lasts for nine minutes! “Trust in the Machine”, though ‘merely’ six minutes, suffers from the same mistakes. Though the song itself is up-beat and quite cheerful, they fill the break with machine-like sounds. You might say, wonderfully progressive, but I’d say just cut the crap and give us some more music. That song also ends with good not great guitar solos, which seems like a pre-Bouncer Kayak formula for lengthy songs. The addition of b-side “We Are Not Amused” to the CD is not a bad idea from a collector’s point of view, but from the listeners point of view it is. This track is shamefully cheerful and a bit of a nuisance because of its massively annoying chorus with its stadium chants.

I bet you’d like to read some positivity about this album now, wouldn’t you? As I said, “Mountain Too Rough” is beautiful and features the best side of both Scherpenzeel’s piano and Werner’s vocals. Songs like this one are Kayak’s strength: great piano ballads with great melodies and not showing off by making it extra lengthy, but playing them very subtly to sooth the listener’s ear. “They Get to Know Me” is actually a nice song, apart from the break. It has a good riff, enjoyable silent verses and a very swinging solo part before the break, neatly varying the synth solos with the guitar solos on a great piano accompaniment. And furthermore we have the Koopman-sung “His Master’s Noise”, which is a very short but delightful ballad in the style of “Mountain”.

In short, this album has its moments and is a necessity for Kayak’s development, but it’s not yet incredibly stunning or anything like that. There are sure some great tracks on here, but nothing I’d consider Kayak’s best, except maybe for “Mountain”. If you can get hold of this CD, I would only recommend you to do so if you are a collector.

Strongest tracks: “Mountain Too Rough”, “They Get to Know Me” and “Trust in the Machine”.
Weakest tracks: “Woe and Alas” and “We Are Not Amused”.

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”.

Queen - Queen I (1973)

Tracklist:
1. Keep Yourself Alive
2. Doing All Right
3. Great King Rat
4. My Fairy King
5. Liar
6. The Night Comes Down
7. Modern Times Rock 'n Roll
8. Son & Daughter
9. Jesus
10. Seven Seas of Rhye



In the Beginning... – 7,3/10

Queen, the legendary band, best known for their smash hit “Bohemian Rhapsody” and later years, never started out as a hit band. In fact, as only true fans know, their first few albums were quite heavy rock albums. The first ever official Queen album doesn’t have one song that become a fairly big hit either, and that is probably why non-Queen fans would never notice this album, sticking to the pop hits like “I Want To Break Free” or “Another One Bites to Dust”. In fact, those people don’t know what they’re missing. They say ignorance is bliss, but that’s certainly not the case with Queen I.

This first album actually sounds like a potpourri of different music styles at times. Where “Keep Yourself Alive” features hard rock at its catchiest, “Doing All Right” begins as a gentle ballad and then suddenly without logic the rhythm shifts and evolves into a hard rock riff. “Great King Rat”, “My Fairy King” and “Liar” show the more progressive side of Queen, and “Son & Daughter” features more Deep Purple-ish riffing. It’s clear that this album is not yet fully drenched in the Queen sound everybody knows, except for Brian May’s unique guitar sound and Freddie Mercury’s one-of-a-kind voice of course. This release does sound quite good, especially the first half. “Great King Rat” is my absolute favorite together with “Liar”. They are two heavy songs with progressive touches, such as the lots of content the song carries. Unique song structures, multiple themes and sudden changes. If the whole album was filled with pieces like these it would’ve been one of Queen’s best releases.

You feel it coming, there are also some downsides. “Son & Daughter” features this Purple-ish feel throughout, and Purple is great, but doesn’t fit on a Queen album. The chorus goes more towards a Queen sound, but it’s all average at best. Then there is “Jesus”. The track tends to be nice, but nothing special. The break takes the song to another level though in a fast and heavy guitar solo. This second half of the album is mainly weaker due to these two tracks, but also because of the lots of short good tracks. “Modern Times Rock ‘n Roll” is a great song, but it’s so damn short. It’s the first song to feature Roger Taylor on vocals. Then the ending song “Seven Seas of Rhye” is the instrumental version of the one that’s on Queen II, and it’s slightly slower and a lot shorter as well. It’s a nice listen, but again so short. “The Night Comes Down” is the only fully enjoyable track after “Liar”, but still it doesn’t compare to the first half of the album. Perhaps I’m demanding too much, but they set the standard very high with songs like “Liar” and “Great King Rat” that they make the lesser songs seem really bad, while they perhaps aren’t bad at all.

In short, Queen I is more of a progressive hard rock album than the more commercial Queen everybody knows through hits. This doesn’t mean the quality of the songs is less. Just like any Queen album it has got great epics and less good songs, but here it’s all a bit roughed up. Highly recommended for the Queen fan, not for those who are new to Queen, they should check out A Day at the Races or Queen II first.

Strongest tracks: “Great King Rat”, “Liar” and “My Fairy King”.
Weakest tracks: “Jesus” and “Son & Daughter”.

Kayak - See See the Sun (1973)

Tracklist:
1. Reason For It All
2. Lyrics
3. Mouldy Wood
4. Lovely Luna
5. Hope For A Life
6. Ballet of the Cripple
7. Forever Is A Lonely Thought
8. Mammoth
9. See See the Sun
10. Still Try To Write A Book [*]
11. Give It A Name [*]


Playfully Progressive – 7,8/10

Kayak’s first album was arguably the weirdest they would ever do. Despite having the greatest front cover of all, it’s also the only album featuring such playful use of odd time signatures and theme changes. Experts were soon comparing Kayak to the world’s finest progbands like Yes or Genesis, and the Dutch were proudly dubbing them the Dutch progrockers. Overall, this album is very weird. When I first heard it there were question marks popping out of my head like you see in those cartoons. How on earth could an album be so radio unfriendly, and at the same time include two of the band’s greatest hits to date?

This album reads ‘progressive’ in each and every aspect. Where we tend to have a catchy poppy theme on “Reason for It All”, we have these odd vocals by Max Werner and Ton Scherpenzeel to surprise us. Hitsingle “Lyrics” features very impressive pianos and a really odd time signature in the verses, not commonly found in singles. Probably the oddest song on the album is “Mouldy Wood”, it flies from odd theme to odd theme, with a cut time signature here and there and weird vocal lines, and a sudden epic guitar melody, and then we have it all together, before the finish with the epic guitar melody. It’s one of the most fascinating songs I ever heard and presents a very playful Kayak, trying a bit too hard to be progressive, but succeeding nonetheless. This pleasant line of surprises and oddities is continued throughout “Hope for a Life”, “Ballet of the Cripple” and b-side and CD bonustrack “Still Try To Write a Book”. Second hitsingle and live classic to this day “Mammoth” features some experimenting with a barrel organ, resulting in a very unique sound, but the song might be a little too poppy in sound.

There are some more mellow sides on this album as well. “Lovely Luna” is an eight-minute piece that I have yet to understand fully. We have Pim Koopman singing here, instead of the usual Max Werner, and the song begins with very silent verses that take an eternity to finish, and then we have a lengthy slightly uninteresting guitar riff, before we get to the verses again. I think this song should’ve been cut down a lot and perhaps even left off the album, I don’t like it. “Forever Is a Lonely Thought” also features Koopman on vocals, but this one is a lot more enjoyable. It also begins silent, but has more active and more fascinating arrangements, overall more relying on pianos than anything else, as on the whole album. Official album closer and title track “See See the Sun” is an epic piece of music, driven by pianos and keyboards. This song is a great example of the great vocal arrangements Kayak has, due to having more capable singers in the band than just one. Even though this is not unique, see Styx or Queen, Kayak makes unique use of it, subtly simulating echoes. The CD album is closed by former b-side “Give It a Name”, which is, though very discouraging at first, a very relaxing and funny song and a brilliant piece of music. It features Koopman on vocals again and features spoken verses, accompanied by a cheery Hammond organ melody.

All in all, See See the Sun is Kayak in its earliest form. It sounds very playful and very progressive in every aspect, something which will not be found on later albums. This makes the album unique and with it Kayak represents the Netherlands on the progressive rock scene. If you a fan of Kayak and you don’t know this album, you should check it out, for you will be pleasantly surprised with each song.

Strongest tracks: “Mouldy Wood”, “Hope For a Life”, “See See the Sun” and “Still Try to Write a Book”.
Weakest track: “Lovely Luna”.

High Tide Formation - Fluffy [Single] (1970)

Tracklist:
1. Fluffy
2. White Walls











A cheery rarity – 7/10

High Tide Formation, though nobody in the here and now would know them, was the band Pim Koopman and Ton Scherpenzeel had played in before they founded Kayak in 1972. While they played guitars and bass respectively, they were accompanied by Ron van der Werf on drums and Chiel van Praag on piano. In the short existence of the group they released a sole single “Fluffy”, written by Van Praag, with b-side “White Walls”, written by Kayak mastermind Scherpenzeel. I must say, kept in mind that this is a kind of an early form of Kayak, it sounds rather surprising and not at all like they would later.

On their sole single, “Fluffy”, which is an instrumental piano-oriented track, based around a catchy rock ‘n roll melody. It really sounds 60s through and through. It’s really swinging and the melody is repeated on guitar also and features some more variations of the theme before they decide it’s time to call it a day. It’s not a very mind-blowing piece of music, but an enjoyable listen nonetheless. “White Walls” is a more mature song, with vocals by I think it’s Pim Koopman, because the voice sounds somewhat familiar to Kayak’s “Give It A Name”, but I’m not sure there. It starts off with a piano intro but quickly evolves into a cheery 60s song with some up-beat rhythms and a chorus with a bit of an epic feeling to it. The piano solos by Van Praag are quite enjoyable, yet we are glad Scherpenzeel takes control of the pianos in Kayak, for he sooths the ear just a bit more. Overall, it is a good, nice track.

In the end Fluffy is a nice single and a great piece of Kayak history, and it’s totally worth it to obtain this rarity, yet you must not expect an early See See the Sun, for it is nothing like Kayak. Still, this is a quite enjoyable single and highly recommended.

April 2010: Kayak and Queen month

Kayak and Queen Month

This month I will review all the albums of Kayak and Queen in chronological order. Let me explain my choices. For newer material from the bands, check this post.

Kayak


I chose Kayak because I am a fan of them ever since I first heard their 1981 album Merlin, when I was 13 years old. Since these Dutch prog-rockers are quite underrated and unknown, it encouraged me to get to know more music of them, which is pretty hard since almost all their albums are out of print. I managed to get legal copies of each album of theirs, but it was a tough journey. These are the albums that I will review:

1970 – High Tide Formation – Fluffy [Single]
1973 – See See the Sun
1974 – Kayak II
1975 – Royal Bed Bouncer
1976 – The Last Encore
1977 – Starlight Dancer
1977 – Starlight Dancer [US]
1978 – Phantom of the Night
1980 – Periscope Life
1981 – Merlin
1981 – Eyewitness

Queen


The British rock quartet was the first band that got me hooked, back in my really young days (primary school). Since I didn’t listen to them ever since I really started listening to music, my rediscovery of their music was rather interesting, since I really only truly hear the music now. This was a quite pleasant experience and of course I would like to write about those albums. These are the albums I’ll review:

1973 – Queen I
1974 – Queen II
1974 – Sheer Heart Attack
1975 – A Night at the Opera
1976 – A Day at the Races
1977 – News of the World
1978 – Jazz
1979 – Live Killers
1980 – The Game
1980 – Flash Gordon
1981 – Greatest Hits I
1982 – Hot Space
1984 – The Works
1986 – A Kind of Magic

Hopefully you’ll like the reviews, and if you have something to say about the reviewed albums than don’t hesitate and please do.

The_CrY