Track Listing

1. Brighton Rock
2. Tenement Funster
3. Flick Of The Wrist
4. Lily Of The Valley
5. Now I'm Here
6. In The Lap Of The Gods
7. Stone Cold Crazy
8. Bring Back That Leroy Brown
9. She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettos)
10. In The Lap Of The Gods...revisited
11. Killer Queen
12. Dear Friends
13. Misfire

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1555 in Music
• Released on: 1993-09-27
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Sheer Heart Attack is probably the band's first mature album, in which they married the Led Zeppelin-influenced crunch of their eponymous debut, and the sonic gimmickry and thematic ambition of its follow-up, Queen II. They then hitched the result to their strongest songwriting to date: the single, "Killer Queen," actually won an Ivor Novello award, and pointed the way forward to subsequent glories. Occasionally their desire to cover every conceivable stylistic base becomes wearying (did ragtime pastiche "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" ever seem like a good idea?), but the ambitious structures and elegant arrangements of tracks like "In the Lap of the Gods" and "Lily of the Valley" attest to a formidable and distinctive musical vision. And when they cut loose and actually rocked out ("Now I'm Here", "Brighton Rock"), few of their peers could match their power--something that many critics, alienated by Mercury's fondness for the grand gesture, nowadays mostly choose to forget. --Andrew McGuire

Customer Reviews

A Night at the Opera – take 1?
Musically Queen II was an album of genius, and in terms of hard rock an album Queen would never really better, but apparently sales were not particularly good, so 3rd album Sheer Heart Attack marks something of a commercialisation of the band, (this is only relatively speaking of course, and compared to the bands ‘80’s output there is still a phenomenal amount of intelligent experimental material on display). Where Queen II was mostly all either incredibly hard progressive rock or very gentle ballads however, Sheer Heart Attack sees the band stretching their range to all areas in between, and with touches of opera, calypso and ragtime (to name a few) this marks the first time that Queen would really start genre-hopping. From this album on the one thing you would be guaranteed with every Queen album (at least until they jumped on the synthesizer bandwagon in the early 80’s) was a huge amount of variety. In short, Queen II may be the better rock album, but Sheer Heart Attack is a much more rounded work. Queen would really perfect this template with their next album A Night At The Opera, and it’s very easy to listen to Sheer Heart Attack as an early attempt at this sound.

Taking the songs by author:

Freddie Mercury’s songs are noticeably more commercial this time round, particularly in the playful lead-off single ‘Killer Queen’. ‘Flick of the Wrist’ is a harder rock song, and features a great chorus and some wild swirling Eastern sounding guitar lines from Brian May in the background, while lyrically with it’s railing against the music business this a clear forerunner to A Night At The Opera’s ‘Death On Two Legs’. This segues seamlessly into Mercury’s next track ‘Lily Of The Valley’, one of two short but beautiful piano ballads on the album. Side Two opener ‘In The Lap Of The Gods’ is probably the most insane song on the album, starting with a minutes worth of over the top vocal operatics before drifting into some weird vocal FX’d lounge song – wonderfully bizarre. ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’ is another wildly experimental song, as Brian May plays ukulele and John Deacon plays upright bass for this comedy ragtime number – if you don’t like this you have a serious problem with your sense of humour! Finally finishing off the album is ‘In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited’ which is really nothing like the earlier version of the song, but is instead the first of those Queen songs that seem to be designed specifically for huge audience participation singalongs (such as ‘We Are The Champions’ or ‘Friends Will Be Friends’) – another great song, and one that must have been a close contender for a single release.

Brian May still covers the bands rock epics, holding the three songs with the longest running time on the album. With opening track ‘Brighton Rock’ it’s easy to see how, as the song contains a massive middle guitar solo where May firsts starts experimenting with the effects he can gain by using a delay pedal to accompany himself. May follows up on the delay experiments on single ‘Now I’m Here’, only this time on Freddie’s vocals, while ‘Dear Friends’ is a departure, being a short sweet piano based lullaby. Finally May provides the vocals himself to ‘She Makes Me’, a long slow strum along where the very weakness of May’s voice just adds to it’s fragile nature – a lovely song, though due to it’s plodding length probably one of the albums lesser tracks.

Roger Taylor’s sole contribution ‘Tenement Funster’ is again a departure from his previous songs, as he ditches the hard rock for a more laid back style. Some great chords and squealing car guitars (again foreshadowing ‘I’m In Love With My Car’) make this a great song.

John Deacon also makes his songwriting debut, and comes out of the blocks with ‘Misfire’, a song so good I’d rank it as the best on the album. A lovely calypso rhythm, great melody, intricately layered bass and guitar lines – a perfect pop record in under 2 minutes.

This album also gives us one of only a couple of instances (at least, before the bands final 2 albums) of a song co-written by all the band – ‘Stone Cold Crazy’, a real manic up-tempo rock song, and after ‘Ogre Battle’ probably one of the heaviest they ever recorded.

Yes – A Night At The Opera is indisputably Queen’s masterpiece, but with both Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack released in the same year 1974 sure was a good year for Queen.

Often forgotten, but one of the best.
The albums from 'Queen II' through to 'News of the World' were undoubtedly the best that they ever recorded, but this one gets somewhat forgotten as it sits between the groundbreaking rock music of 'Queen II' and the awesomely unique 'Night at the Opera'. It has been unfairly referred to as a rehearsal for 'Night at the Opera', but this album can stand on its own merits as a great Queen album.

It opens with live favourite 'Brighton Rock', which Brian used as a showcase for his solo delayed guitar spot and developed over the years into a showcase for this technique. It moves to the song that won Freddie Mercury an Ivor Novello songwriting award - 'Killer Queen' - their first big hit in the UK. It just seems to be one great song after another, with a breathtaking range of styles.

Not all of the songs are going to appeal to everyone, and 'Bring Back that Leroy Brown' seems to be singled out, but it fits well with the rest of the album and makes me smile every time I hear it. 'In the Lap of the Gods' is probably the most underrated track here though. It was played near the beginning of the set on their last world tour, but they didn't play it the same way as either version here - from Roger Taylor's amazing vocal at the start to the singalong ending, it's one of the classic Queen songs.

This one really does rate up there with the best!

An excellent album - possibly Queen's best
Usually when top 100 album surveys are conducted, Queen’s contribution is ‘A Night At The Opera’. While that is a fine album, whisper it quietly, but this one might be even better…

The album starts off strongly with ‘Brighton Rock’, famous for it’s Brian May guitar solo, as well as Freddie Mercury’s strange vocals. ‘Killer Queen’ needs no expanding upon, simply one of the best songs Queen ever did.

‘Tenement Funster’, while no masterpiece is the best song Roger Taylor had written thus far. Flick Of The Wrist foreshadows ‘Death On Two Legs on the next album, while it’s companion piece, ‘Lily Of The Valley’ offers some of the atmosphere found on ‘Nevermore’ from ‘Queen II’.

Side one of the old LP finishes with ‘Now I’m Here’. Side Two is where the fun really begins…

First up is 'In The Lap Of The Gods…' a gloriously over the top Mercury song that segues into Stone Cold Crazy, a fast and furious track credited to all four band members.

The tempo drops again for ‘Dear Friends’ a slight May ballad that seems to finish before it has even begun.

Similarly brief, ‘Misfire’ marks John Deacon’s full writing debut on a Queen album. A catchy acoustic track, that hints at what was to come from him in the future.

‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’ is a wonderful ragtime pastiche by Mercury, and the sheer joie de vivre of the track shines through every second of it.

Having built up such a head of steam it is slightly disappointing that the band should spoil the mood by turning to May’s sombre ‘She Makes Me’. This choice is stranger still when confronted by the album closer, ‘In The Lap Of The Gods…(Revisited)’. A more over the top finale it would be hard to imagine, although Queen would have a good go at topping it in the future.

Overall, this is a fine Queen album and one that bears repeated listening.