Underappreciated Album: Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack

By Christian Lipski

At first glance, Sheer Heart Attack‘s only claim to fame is that it’s the album with “Killer Queen” on it, which may even come as a surprise to people who thought that that was Greatest Hits I. But the album goes quite a bit deeper, and is one of my favorite complete albums from Queen, even above A Night At The Opera or News Of The World, both very popular albums. Sheer Heart Attack was Queen’s third album, and the first one to really peek its head out from the progressive-rock mire that the previous two had been firmly entrenched in. There were still some elements of fantasy and nods to prog rock, but they were kept at a tasteful level. What you got was a selection of catchy rock songs of the pop-, hard-, and arena- varieties.

Right off the bat, in the long intro to “Brighton Rock,” you hear whistling, which is a direct segue from the end of the last song of Queen II. This kind of aural continuity is similar to that created by comedy group The Firesign Theatre, who end their album Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers and begin the next album, I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus with the sound of a Good Humor ice cream truck driving away. Freddie Mercury sings the fast rocker from the points of view of a boy and girl who meet for a brief tryst at the seaside.

The verses are high-pitched and frenetic, but Mercury’s drop from falsetto during “magic in the air” is full of power, and the “Oh, rock of ages” refrain with its thundering C# chord brings the group’s harmony to the forefront. Both are well worth the wait. The only real down side to the song is the three full minutes of guitar solo, more than half of the song. It’s certainly in keeping with the tone of the song, but you can hear the fact that it was written for the previous album.

“Killer Queen” is well-known, but this was the first example of the cabaret-vaudeville style that Mercury would return to in later albums. To me, the song is like a cool breeze or an icy glass of tea: it’s precise and perfect and so refreshing. The guitar solo at 1:40 is still one of my favorite guitar lines, and who can’t love a guitar-generated cat noise? A sign of things to come after a look back in the previous song.

Although I am a drummer primarily and love it when my brothers are given a little spotlight, most of Roger Taylor’s songs tend to be abrasive and unpleasant, so I usually skip them. “Tenement Funster,” on the other hand, is one of my favorite tracks on the album. It’s lyrically about being a kid and a rocker, with a un-Taylor-like slow groove chugging behind it. Once again, it’s the chord changes that get me: when the Em/Am pattern suddenly becomes a big fat major G, the sound just opens up in my brain. The solo at 1:33 also reminds me of the solo in David Bowie’s “Lady Grinning Soul” (at 3:04) in its sinuous character, which is always a good thing.

This song is the first of three which are blended into one another, like side two of Abbey Road, and similarly the songs are completely unrelated to each other. “Funster” ends with a piano segue into “Flick of the Wrist,” which is a three-minute microcosm, blending ominous low verses with a fast build to the epic chorus. The song as a whole is generally too disjointed to be really hummable, but the individual sections are dramatic and expressive without being prog-rock-schizophrenic, and eventually resolve to the piano-based ballad “Lily of the Valley.” “Lily” is a brief coda, serving as a short (1:45) but sweet wrap-up to the trio of songs.

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