Every Queen record, apart from their self-titled debut, has the same problem. While there’ll be one or two all-time great hits from the band found within, the album material is nothing short of miserable. Fodder to make sure there is more material than just a single to throw out there. Sheer Heart Attack suffers from this despite having both a fantastic Stone Cold Crazy and Killer Queen early on. It’s steadying the course through the lacklustre moments, that complete drop-off in material worth returning to, that Queen cannot mount. ABBA had the same issues as Queen here, where the singles were all they had. Album material would rarely spark a surge of interest for either band, but with Queen, the lack of truly great material left uncovered because it’s used as an album track rather than a single, is fascinating. Not fascinating enough to make Sheer Heart Attack a great album, but enough of a point to understand what the band are trying to do at this stage.
A few moments of interest in the early moments, like Brighton Rock and the upbeat tone it takes, are scuppered by some peculiar choices from the band. Steady instrumental work led by Brian May does well not to fall into the ego-driven fret work which would dominate the so-called best songs, but it pushes the line. An incredibly impressive song in the end, though the higher pitch Freddie Mercury takes for the track feels unnecessarily high. It undoes what could have been a song as good as Killer Queen, which has been assimilated through different forms of culture so much over the last few decades that it’s hard to feel anything but joy for when it comes on. There’s a consistency across Sheer Heart Attack that passing listeners mustn’t get used to, it would hardly appear again for Queen. Tenement Funster is a neat song that serves as more a transition for the group to get to grips with the harder rock style found here.
Follow that up with Flick of the Wrist and you can hear, right there, the style that works best for Queen. It’s a bombastic time but a great bit of fun that transitions from hard rock edge to soft piano soppiness on Lily of the Valley with a surprise lack of clunkiness. Queen sound as though they’re influenced a little too much by their rock contemporaries, particularly Electric Light Orchestra with the wispy, lighter sound of In the Lap of the Gods. Not a bad band to pull influence from, but it sounds as though Queen is still struggling to find a style of their own on Sheer Heart Attack. Just when you think the band has figured out the style they want, they turn it on its head. Stone Cold Crazy is a rare pairing of great lyrics and a fantastic, hard rock line with May playing well here.
Every time Queen builds some momentum for their sound they decide that’s enough and break out some nostalgia ditty that brings them back to the seaside. Brighton Rock was that in name alone, but the mess of Bring Back That Leroy Brown is a shame to hear. It offers nothing more than an annoying block between two solid songs which, had they been together, would give Queen that credibility so many have already offered them off the back of strong singles. She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes) is arguably one of the boldest songs the band would ever put out and yet it’s used as latter-stage fodder for Sheer Heart Attack. Solid work, sure, but it falls well short of what it could have been. Fun for what it is, and still better than the albums to follow, but still a tricky beast.
