Record Reviews

QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS ~ COSMOS ROCKS (DELUXE EDITION) ISLAND 602537014149 (Barcode: 602537014149) ~ UK ~ Classic Rock Recorded: 2008 Released: 2008 I must admit it took me a while to even consider listening to this album… I mean, separately, QueenFind albums by this artist was always one of my favorite British Rock bands and of course I have always considered Paul RodgersFind albums by this artist as the best British Blues-Rock vocalist ever, but somehow the combination of these two Rock legends seemed too bizarre to be true. Boy was I wrong… Of course the real Queen ceased to exist when the bigger than life Freddie MercuryFind albums by this artist left us for greener pastures. But the remaining three band members: guitarist Brian MayFind albums by this artist, bassist John DeaconFind albums by this artist and drummer Roger TaylorFind albums by this artist decided to carry on for a while and released a couple of albums following Mercury´s death. After a decade of silence May and Taylor decided to revive the Queen moniker in order to tour. With Deacon opting to stay out, they enlisted Rodgers as the new lead singer and recorded a live album during the 2005 tour, which was followed three years later by this, their only studio album together. After two more live albums they decided to call it the day for good (so far). Now Rodgers with his deep, throaty, Bluesy voice was nothing alike the operatic falsetto of Mercury, which meant only one thing, Queen had to change the repertoire to suit Rodgers´ abilities. The early attempt to combine old Queen material with songs associated with Rodgers´ earlier career did not work that well and therefore the band members wrote fourteen completely new songs for this album, which are all credited to all three of them. Musically they range from Rock ballads to Blues-Rock pieces, all of which suit Rodgers´ voice perfectly. The new material turned out to be surprisingly quite excellent. Of course the result proved that the band had to adopt to the lead singer rather than vice versa. In retrospect this is another excellent album in the long history of Rodgers´ achievements and his many fans will find here exactly what they expect from him. May plays some amazing guitar solos, which he always was capable of doing and overall the album is truly much better that I, and many other people, expected. The cosmos rocks indeed. This deluxe version includes a DVD with material filmed in Japan during the original 2005 tour, previously unreleased, which is definitely a great fun to watch. Better late then never!

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