Sheer Heart Attack – Queen album

Sheer Heart Attack is an album produced by Roy Thomas Baker and Queen.
Engineered by Mike Stone.
Cover Concept by Queen.

Freddie Mercury: Vocals, Piano, Jangle Piano, Vocal Extravaganzas.
Roger Taylor: Drums, Vocals, Percussion, Screams.
John Deacon: Bass Guitar, Double Bass, Acoustic Guitar.
Brian May: Guitars, Vocals, Piano, Genuine George Formby Ukelele-Banjo.
No synthesizers

Recommended Songs: Brighton Rock (May), Killer Queen (Mercury), Now I’m here (May)

Sheer Heart Attack Review

Sheer Heart Attack, was Queens prelude to greatness – it reached number 2 in the UK Album charts and not for lack of trying. The album itself is excellent and pulls no punches by getting straight in there and hitting you with the classic Brian May piece, ‘Brighton Rock’ followed by Queens first real chart hit, ‘Killer Queen’. Apparently, Brighton Rock was based loosely on a book by Graham Greene called ‘Brighton Rock’ …!

Theres still a bit of fantasy in Freddies songs with references to Gods like Mercury and places called Rhye being mentioned in the lyrics – ‘Lily of the Valley’, ‘In the Lap of the Gods’ and ‘In the Lap of the Gods (Revisited)’ are all classic Mercury pieces.

Brian May also gets his own songs added to the Queen mix. With ‘Now I’m here’, ‘Dear Friends’ and ‘She Makes Me’ as well as contributing an excellent guitar section to ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ which is a very popular cover by bands like Metallica.

The album also marks John Deacons first track on a Queen album, with ‘Misfire’, a very well worked first piece. Roger Taylors, ‘Tenement Funster’ is his only contribution to the album, however, he had planned on including the title track ‘Sheet Heart Attack’, but it was not ready at the time .. instead you can find that on ‘News of the World’, released 3 years later.

Sheer Heart Attack, is another excellent early Queen album, mixing heavy guitar pieces, ballads, and folksy guitar pieces. There’s even a 1930’s style piece in ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’.

One thing you will notice about the album is that the production is so much tighter and better engineered than the previous albums. Q Magazine when reviewing said Sheer Heart Attack was , ‘ one of the great pop/rock admixtures of the ’70s ‘.

Sheer Heart Attack is a very complete album and to describe it in 2 words … ‘ very entertaining ‘ – another must have Queen album !

Sheer Heart Attack – Did you know ….

1) Brian got infected with hepatitis from an unclean needle from a travel vaccination prior to the Australian tour, and was missing for much of the album work. He actually fell ill during a US concert.

2) The Sheer Heart Attack Album Cover was by Mick Rock and many outtakes of the shoot are online, with Queen laughing and having a great time.

3) The Sheer Heart Attack full album is under 40 minutes long at 38 minutes and 41 seconds which is quite short for an album

4) you may ask ‘why is sheer heart attack on news of the world?’ well , the Sheer Heart Attack song was originally written for this album (of the same name) but was not totally finished and for other reasons also it was not included. The song was finished for News of the World in 1977 just in time for the Punk era such as the Sex Pistols.

5) There are online sites which say that Freddie won an Ivor Novello award for Killer Queen – but this is incorrect according to the Ivor Novello website. However, Freddie did win in 1975 for Bohemian Rhapsody. Freddie apparently came second in the Ivor Novello awards in 1974 for Killer Queen.