If there ever was a Queen album to gush over (and surely there have been lots of them), Queen II pretty much brings me to a sheer heart attack every time I hear it…in a good way. The first four songs on “Side White” of this 1974 release might be one of the best openings in rock album history, although every song across the album, both “Side White” and “Side Black,” is a winner.
It’s from this 11-song collection where Queen enjoyed their first hit with “Seven Seas Of Rhye,” and where drummer Roger Taylor, lead vocalist, pianist Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May and bassist John Deacon deliver some of their heaviest, and up to that point, most complex and layered productions, birthing a sound that would serve this band well as they went on to make rock history.
This five CD + two-LP super deluxe box set gives us the original 11-song album remixed, plus an additional chunk of material that includes studio outtakes, demos, live performances, BBC sessions and backing tracks to the original 1974 album. The extra non-musical goodies here include a 112-page book, with track-by-track comments from May and Taylor, handwritten lyrics, archival interviews with Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, pictures of posters, advertisements and studio tape boxes. There are also photos taken by Mick Rock, and a host of other well-known rock photographers.
Although I have gone on record (pardon the pun) thinking there are better ways to celebrate a classic album than changing it, even with the most expert remix, there is no denying that this version of Queen II has the instruments and voices separated sharper than they are on the original release. It’s up to the listener to decide if this is a good or bad thing, but songs like “Father to Son,” “and Ogre Battle,” really showcase the sound here, as do the rest benefit in this specific way.
The big blues stomper “See What a Fool I’ve Been,” the B-side to the “Seven Seas of Rhye” single starts off the At The BBC set. An “Ogre Battle,” from a later BBC Session, follows as “Nevermore,” and “White Queen (As It Began)” from an even later BBC Session, then we get more from Queen II in a live performance of the band at Golders Green Hippodrome, from September 1973. This is a high-fire set from “one of the brightest bands around,” as the emcee tells the crowd in the opening, Queen rolling through the bombast of “Procession,” “Father to Son,” then six more, from Queen I and Queen II. The sets ends with a rousing “Jailhouse Rock,” cover. Brian May’s guitar is louder than mostly anything else in the mix here, and there is practically no real bass from John Deacon to be heard, but this is a great historical document of Queen. There are more concert catches, eight in fact, taken mostly from the band’s infamous UK Rainbow Theatre show in 1974, and them playing live at the Hammersmith Odeon in December 1975.
The 16 tracks of the Sessions set includes a mix of studio banter, such as May talking in the studio before beginning the “Processions” famous guitar layered beginning. Two demos of “The Loser In The End,” May’s initial demo of “As It Began” from 1969, a couple demos of “The Loser In The End” (both funkier than what ended up on the album), plus the first physical release of “Not For Sale (Polar Bear),” Queen’s abandoned Christmas song that was just recently heard via streaming on Christmas Eve 2025. There’s lots more studio chatter here between the band mates, which is actually almost as priceless as these demos.
I can surely genuflect over many a Queen album, lots of them classics, with the band gaining worldwide popularity with 1975’s mega hit A Night at the Opera, containing as it did that little Queen ditty, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” But for me Queen II sees the band at their best…as the Collector’s Edition surely makes clear.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
Purchase Queen II (Collector’s Edition)
