Queen - 40th Anniversary Expanded Debut

 

This 40th anniversary expanded version has a nice version of the band's debut album for Disc One but the special reason for purchasing would be Disc Two, which is a 6 song EP featuring demos the boys recorded in December of 1971 (as well as one from June of '72). According to the liner notes, these are the first studio recordings ever made by the band, which is fairly astonishing, as they are nearly as well done as the final album versions. In fact, while there are a few minor changes in the arrangements and the lead sections, they are pretty well fully formed - especially "The Night Comes Down", which was simply remixed for the album, while the rest of the tunes were re-recorded. They did not believe that "Mad the Swine" was properly completed so time constraints kept it off the record and so this is the first time hearing this one!

As I remember at the time of the initial release, Queen were being compared to the likes of Led Zep, most likely due to their penchant for heavy rock and fairies'n'folk lore in their lyrics. But, in this day'n'age, they really do not sound much alike at all. Brian May's guitar sound is singularly unique and the vocals are highly melodic and, of course, they are known for their impressive'n'excessive harmonies.

The album opens with May's swirling guitar playing against itself before the rhythm section pounds in and the Mercury chides the listener to "Keep Yourself Alive". The sound is excellent - John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker producing. Freddie's love of piano ballads come through in "Doing All Right", but they can't keep it too simple, so it goes through multiple changes, with an acoustic guitar section that moves into a huge, crunching guitar'n'full band coda before returning to the quiet melody. "Great King Rat" opens with more crunchy guitars and a galloping rhythm from John and Taylor, and a neat, wah-wahed solo from May, while the lyrics reference Christ, oddly. 

May synthesizer-like guitar lines open and augment "My Fairy King" as Freddie and company handle extraordinary vocal melodies'n'harmonies as the song again moves from rocker to sensitive piano ballad and back again while still maintaining a coherence. "Liar" opens with another heavy, 70's guitar rock section and again the tune excels in vocals'n'arrangements'n'dynamics, and while it is clearly Queen and includes some of their eccentricities , this is a more straight-ahead 70's rocker, comparatively speaking. They do like to kinda throw in the kitchen sink with their arrangements, as in "The Night Comes Down" with an intricate instrumental opening that breaks down into a ballad-like number, but they strip things down again for the rockin' "Modern Times Rock'n'Roll" followed by the heavy, dramatic swagger of "Son and Daughter" (with the interesting line from Freddie, "I want you to be a woman" - always wondered about that one). Brian gets religious in "Jesus" (odd, seeing that he is an astro-physicist), a chunky, minor-key rocker that ends in the final "track", "Seven Seas of Rhye", which is simply a short instrumental epilogue to "Jesus".

The bonus disc also opens with "Keep Yourself Alive", with a super-similar arrangement but the production is slightly different - not a bad thing at all, as it still sounds great - and Freddie's vocal line changes a bit and the breakdown is more drum-heavy. Again, the intro to "The Night Comes Down" varies a bit, but not dramatically, but they change things up for the instrumental section. "Great King Rat" again keeps the basic arrangement that we know, but there is a bit more diversity and the drum sound is not nearly as strong as it is on the album take. Same with "Jesus" - not wildly divergent, but some noticeable exceptions, such as the solo section, which is probably the biggest change on this entire disc, until we get to "Liar". The tempo and vocals differ a bit but there's not too much that surprises until we get to the lead section, which really takes off and might be an improvement on the album version! The rest of the song really rocks with more intensity than most of their stuff, and, again the lead parts really stand out, especially when May plays off of himself - really excellent! The finale, "Mad The Swine", is the one song that was previously unreleased in any form and while it is a nice, mid-tempo, Queen number, it is not particularly exceptional, and I can see why it was left unfinished until now - nothing wrong but nothing special, either.

Queen fans will certainly want to check out these demos - definitely worthwhile!