March 8, 1974 - Queen II

A week since my last release, and about 9 months since "Queen", Queen released their second album "Queen II" on March 8, 1974. This album continues the style of their previous one, and Queen were also given more freedom in the studio in this album, leading to them using lots of double tracking and overdubs. While it is not a concept album, it's divided into the Side White (side one) and Side Black (side two). Side White is more emotional and diverse, and has songs that are mostly written by guitarist Brian May. Side Black is more aggressive, with darker lyrical themes, and is entirely written and sung by Freddie Mercury. Let's give it a listen!

Side White begins with "Procession", a 1-minute instrumental with May playing funeral-style guitar. This leads right into "Father To Son" and Mercury's voice sounds pretty good as May plays a pretty cool piano riff, as well as decent guitar. Roger Taylor's drums are solid as well, and they move to a heavier riff led by some sweet guitar. May plays a pretty good solo, and the band jam out the chorus for a bit with more cool guitar. Track 3 is titled "White Queen (As It Began)" and Mercury sings slowly and softly as we hear some epic slow guitar. It shifts into a heavier, but still slow rock riff that's nice, then back to opening riff. May plays a really cool acoustic solo, and then it's back to the heavy riff in this cool clashing of worlds song. May wrote the next song, "Some Day One Day" and his cool acoustic riff leads the song. May sings lead vocals on this songas well and his voice is a little like a soft Mercury, not much oomph behind it but it's alright. He plays several different guitar tracks that combine pretty nicely and this song never really jumps out, but is a smooth ride the whole way through. The side finishes with "The Loser In The End" and opens with some cool drums by Taylor who sings lead on this one. His voice is pretty good in this slow jam with cool bass and guitar. May plays a short, sweet solo and we hear more cool drums. It's not your typical Queen song, but like Taylor's song from "Queen", it's a cool rock song that fits his vocal style. It ends with another guitar solo and some nice bass by John Deacon as well.

Side Black starts with "Ogre Battle" and this song opens with a whole riff played in reverse! It sounds pretty trippy, but also pretty good and Mercury sings very high indeed! His singing is quick but very precise in this fast rock jam. May plays some great guitar throughout and this is certainly an epic battle song. Up next is "The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke" which is led by some cool organ by Mercury in this quick rock song with some nice bass by Deacon as well. Mercury sounds wonderful as his vocal range has no bounds. He plays some great keyboards as well and this sounds like Queen at their best. The piano at the end leads right into "Nevermore", an epic piano solo by Mercury that sounds pretty awesome. For just over a minute long, this is quite a good little song. Track 9 is "The March Of The Black Queen" and this slow piano intro has some mean, heavy guitar by May. Mercury sings on a couple vocal tracks and two Freddie's sounds pretty good! May delivers some excellent guitar in the verse as Mercury sings quickly. They slow it down and we hear some great piano by Mercury, then it ramps up again with some great guitar. It has a neat ending as well and this song is quite progressive! Good stuff! The next song is titled "Funny How Love Is" which is a slow piano-led song, where Mercury sounds a little distant. The whole mix doesn't seem in your face enough, but I suppose it fits this linear song. Mercury, May and Taylor all sing on this one and together they're high voices do mix well. There's some decent guitar, but this whole song just sounds lighter than it could be. The album finale is, once again, "Seven Seas Of Rhye" and it's the same epic piano riff that carried last year's song that carries this one, only this time it's a little longer with vocals added. The piano and guitar both sound cool as Mercury sings about his own mythical world of "Rhye". May's guitar solo is short but good and this is a pretty cool development of the short instrumental from last year. It has a bit of a weird ending, but was overall a pretty sweet way to end the side.

That is the end of "Queen II" and I thought it was a pretty solid album. The White and Black sides is an interesting idea and I thought the Mercury-dominated Black side was the better half. Both were good though, and this is another fine rock album. But how does it compare to "Queen"? They are both similar, and I think it's a close call, but I think the overall better album was "Queen II". The debut has a couple really cool songs, but this album flowed and held your attention better I thought. I look forward to hearing Queen try to outdo themselves in the future!