QUEEN II

Disclosure: I cannot be accurately described as a fan of the band. I'm very respectful of Freddie Mercury's vocal and compositional abilities, and always wowed by Brian May's guitar style and talent. But I'm also a guy that takes music a little too seriously, and too many of the band's works strayed too far towards twee pop songs or torch songs. I'm rarely appreciative of either musical theater or the ridiculous synthetic superficiality that characterized so many bands' change of style in the 80s. Plus, Queen became so ubiquitous at least four times during my lifetime (Greatest Hits, Wayne's World, Live Aid and Freddie bio movie) that it was hard not to get sick of hearing about them. Queen is very much like a decadent dessert; once you overindulge, it's a long time before you can bring yourself to find it appetizing again.

Yet despite (or in some ways because of) this, I still regard Queen II as one of my favorite albums. Maybe not top 5 or 10, but not too far down from there. Go figure.

Immediately upon crossing the threshold, you're gifted with Brian May harmonies, symphonic and ahead of his time. Not so much in the Yardbirds alumni/ Hendrix vein of rock guitarists, May instead took a similar road as glam soloist Mick Ronson, a raw but symphonic preface to the neoclassical wave that took off after Van Halen and Uli Roth.

This layered smooth-but-edgy approach also characterized Roy Thomas Baker's arrangement of the vocals, so much a part of the Cars' first few albums. While this could become an overbearing wall of sound in lesser hands, the precise application of restraint and emphasis lends dramatic (it's OK to say 'melodramatic') weight when called for.

Nearly everything the album has to offer is touched upon briefly on the opening track: larger- than-life anthemic multitracked guitars and vocals, barebones breakdowns with solo voice and a single instrument, capricious changes in dynamics and pacing, all leading to a huge finale. I personally like "Father to Son" more than anything else on the album, but that's not to say there aren't many impressive moments to come.

Like any self-respecting prog band of the 70s, Queen feels it necessary to explore the idiosyncrasies of each band member on side one before launching into the epic collaboration of the side two. "White Queen" provides a dark arpeggio that connects the dots between "She's so Heavy" a few years before and "Still Loving You" several years later, and gets impressively heavy and dramatic with all the territory it covers under 5 minutes. Then there's a semi-acoustic semi- mellow semi-hippie jam sung by May himself -- and while no match for Freddie, it sounds competent and suitable, miles ahead of the following: the album's only contender for a stinker, "Loser in the End" a Roger Taylor contribution, comparatively underwhelming both in concept and realization.

But forget all that, because Side Black is one long rollercoaster of Queeny goodness. "Ogre Battle" is absolutely made for 70s fantastists and rockers alike, you can almost smell the 1st edition of D&D and the last edition of Ray Harryhausen stop motion animation. There was nobody like Queen to bridge the gap between some of the heaviest sounds of the 70s and musical theater.

I don't know that there's much point in deconstructing the narrative. I'm not sure there's even a narrative to deconstruct. The "Black" side can be seen as a collage, a melange, a rhapsody (oh wait, not yet) more in the vein of Abbey Road's second side than Close to the Edge or Echoes. We're not given any reason to really connect "Ogre Battle" to the sweet mournfulness of "Nevermore" or the celebratory culmination of "Funny How Love Is." Nevertheless, there is a certain continuity and flow that begs the listener to hear the whole side from start to finish -- probably something of a challenge to many at the time, and almost unimaginable in our lamentable attention-deficit modern era.

"The Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke" is a rollicking ride in and of itself. I don't know if the idea of describing a painting came from Crimson's "The Night Watch," but musically and lyrically the two couldn't be more different. Whereas Crimson's haunting historicity attempts to transcend the intervening centuries to connect the listener to the artist and his subjects, Queen simply runs down the list of depicted characters with various mischievous interpretations and musical motifs. Not that it's any less engaging, but as with everything Queen, there's a veneer of campy superficiality that belies (intentionally or otherwise) the undeniable musicality involved.

"March of the Black Queen" is mischievous in a different way. The guitars are furious at times, the lyrics darkly suggestive if not blatantly transgressive. It's fun with a side order of discomfort, part "Rocky Horror" and part painful metaphor of interpersonal sexual dynamics. Am I reading too much into it, or not enough?

"Seven Seas of Rhye" gets more than a fresh coat of paint to elevate it from the abbreviated and (mostly) instrumental version that closed the band's first album. It's now a fully-fledged song, albeit a largely incomprehensible one. As a finale, it is as satisfying and rocking as "Father to Son" was as an opener.

All-in-all, the entire album is a heavy, fun, and progressive treat from start to finish, in my opinion the single most enjoyable and accomplished album in the band's discography. I have a certain fondness for the debut, and there are many great individual songs yet to come -- obviously, they were to hit much higher popular acclaim (and sales) afterwards, but they never produced a long-player as seamlessly engaging as this. Shame about "Loser," though.

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