Gunfire, Guillotine, Dynamite With A Laser Beam

Things I like:

1. Queen
2. Albums where the title track appears on a later LP*
3. LPs that don’t sound like anyone else ever has, or will again
4. Albums where every song sounds very different
5. LPs enhanced by Welsh magic

Well, spray my bare torso, light me sympathetically and drape me next to John Deacon – its Sheer Heart Attack; my fave Queen album of all time! Well, today it is.

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For my money Queen perfected the rudiments of their sound over their first two LPs, both of which I adore and hit us with their fully realised vision of their sound in 1974 with Sheer Heart Attack.

Just pop the needle onto ‘Killer Queen’ and … wow, this sounded like absolutely nobody before, or since. It was campy and glamorous to a fault but girded around with some serious rock muscle, all touched off with stunning melodies and a lot of humour. This was champagne music. Rather weirdly it has only just occurred to me that this probably isn’t about a woman, that’s only taken me 36 years to work that out. I love it.

I can put my hand on heart** and say that I love every last second of this album, it is a touch more inspired, heavier and more heartfelt than the classics that were to follow over the next 4 years. What I also get from Sheer Heart Attack that I don’t quite get elsewhere in Queen’s discography, is a real excitement from a band doing it all for the first time, limited only by their imaginations as their musicianship soared.

There are some great rock thrills to be had hereabouts. The raw excitement and drive of ‘Now I’m Here’, the ogre battling ‘Flick Of The Wrist’ and the exciting sounds of Brian May playing with himself on ‘Brighton Rock’ … which I love beyond measure. The rawest kicks are to be found on ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ and the segue between it and the preceding ‘In The Lap Of The Gods’ is worth the price of admission alone.

The gentle ‘Lily Of The Valley is another long time favourite, I named a cat Lily because of it once. The scarf waving light operatic joys of ‘In The Lap Of The Gods’ (both versions) are wonderfully pompous and fun too.

These days I find most of my kicks in the more obscure corners of Sheer Heart Attack. First up being ‘Dear Friends’, a rather gorgeous minute of solace and harmony from Brian. I love the vaudeville Cotton Club-isms of ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’^ for pure silliness and joie de vivre it’s hard to beat. John Deacon’s rather pretty ‘Misfire’ is a nice tune too.

I have always had a real thing for the slightly eerie ‘She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stillettoes)’^^. The subtitle is an allusion to the heavy rhythm of the piece. Not many Queen songs are given this much room to breathe and it sounds so different to anything else from their catalogue.

The track I am really obsessed with though^* is Roger Taylor’s ‘Tenement Funster’. Now, I confess to a certain amount of bias here as he is the only member of the band I have ever wanted to be, he was by far the coolest I always thought, plus there’s a shot of him wearing tiger-striped trousers on the inner sleeve of Live Killers ’nuff said.

Anyway. ‘Tenement Funster’ doesn’t sound like anything else the band ever did. It’s a characteristically cool ode to just how damned cool the aspiring rock star/Roger is ‘I got a way with the girls on my block’. There’s just something delicious about the non-chorus chorus that gets me every time.

Oh give me a good guitar
And you can say that my hair's a disgrace
Or just find me an open car
I'll make the speed of light outa this place

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Needless to say the musicianship and vision throughout is stunning, the melodies and harmonies are just so right. Sheer Heart Attack does have real bite on occasion too, at times it is akin to being knocked unconscious by a bruiser wearing the very finest softest velvet boxing gloves.

Roy Thomas Baker did a truly excellent job corralling it all together and sequencing the album to perfection – the three-song segue running from ‘Tenement …’ through to ‘Lily …’ is masterful. The finished product absolutely belies the chaotic pressurised genesis of the album; clearly the magic of Rockfield Studios played its part.

Sheer Heart Attack is a colossal LP, the discerning rockers’ choice and my go-to Queen album*^. You need a bit of luxury every now and then.

Time to spray my bare torso, light me sympathetically and drape me next to John Deacon.

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Big kudos have to go to the late, wonderful Mick Rock for the excellent cover photo here too. It is one of his very best, which really is saying something.

1118 Down.

PS: This is the real thing:

*only other example I can think of off the top of my head is Houses Of the Holy. Anyone else?

**quite easily as it happens, as I have dressed up as Freddie Mercury circa ’74 in order to channel the proper degree of sumptuousness to write this review. So, open fronted leopard skin leotard it is.

^which I hadn’t realised was a gentle nod to Jim Croce who had died the previous year.

^^not an ode to a dominatrix, despite the title. Not that I had any idea what a dominatrix was when I first heard it aged 14; if pushed to guess I’d have gone for ‘female magician‘ I suspect.

^*and from my Queen fanclub days I know I’m not alone in this.

*^when I’m not in a rare Flash Gordon mood.