Queen
Queen - EMI 1973
Tracks: 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 and Daughter / 9. Jesus / 10. Seven Seas of Rhye.../ 11. Mad the Swine * / 12. Keep Yourself Alive* / 13. Liar*
Comments:
I was somewhat surprised to find that many of Queen's characteristic features can already be heard on this 1973 debut album. Here, for example, I think of Brian May's special guitar sound, the group's tight vocal harmonies and their overall complex compositions. When the album can't really measure up to the later big albums, it is primarily because Mercury and May only briefly show the compositional talent that unfolded on albums like "Sheer Heart Attack" and "A Night in the Opera". There is generally also a slightly annoying tendency to play heavy with too much “hero-guitar” from May.
The good tracks that make the album worth buying/listening to are e.g. May's fast rocker "Keep Yourself Alive" with lead vocals from Mercury. A typical Queen number for better or for worse. Another May number, "The Night Comes Down" also stands out positively. Here there is acoustic guitar and a slightly different beat. One of the subdued tracks.
Mercury's tracks are generally more complex and contain many good elements; however, it is as if he wants too much at once, and thereby gets himself in trouble.
Roger Taylor's short rocker "Modern Times Rock'n'Roll is quite nice in the best Led Zeppelin style.
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