Any Queen album is bound to divide opinion, amongst the general CD-buying public and the hardcore fans of the band. "Made in Heaven" was no exception, arriving in 1995 amid a blaze of publicity as a collection of tracks Freddie Mercury worked on bravely during his last few months of life in 1991.

While this is a slight bending of the truth - only 3 tracks actually originate from those sessions at the Montreux studios in Switzerland in 1991 - it would be extremely churlish to criticise the music of the album purely for that reason. Especially when it contains so many classic Queen tracks that, despite the conditions under which it was produced, it sits comfortably in the top half of Queen tracks ever recorded.

It opens with "It's a Beautiful Day", the only song on the album that sounds in any way incomplete. Originating from a partial demo vocal laid down by Mercury sometime in the 1980s, it nevertheless sets the scene for the rest of the album in a surprisingly upbeat fashion.

The second track on the album "Made in Heaven" sounds like a traditional Queen anthem, full of intricate guitar from Brian May, soaring vocals from Mercury and powerful drumming from Roger Taylor. This song was originally written an recorded by Mercury for his solo album "Mr Bad Guy" in 1985, however when released as the second single from that album it stalled at a poor No. 57 in the UK singles chart. In the 1990s the remaining members of Queen took Mercury’s vocal from this song and added a new Queen backing track to it when working on this album, for which it also provides the title of course.

"Let Me Live" is another anthemic highlight of the album. This song originally surfaced in 1983, when the band were working on 'The Works' album. On one occasion, Rod Stewart and his guitarist friend Jeff Beck popped by the studios in Los Angeles and they ended up jamming with Queen, and from this jamming session emerged a section of a tune and a verse and chorus from Mercury that were to form the basis of "Let Me Live". A decade later, when the remaining members of Queen were working on 'Made in Heaven', they took this snippet and built a song around it, resulting in "Let Me Live". Uniquely for a Queen song, it features Mercury, Taylor and May all sharing the lead vocal, as May and Taylor had to fill up the space left by there being so little of Mercury’s vocal in the song. The third single to be released from Made in Heaven, it reached No. 9 in the UK charts, Queen’s 24th top 10 hit in the UK, second only to the Beatles, and the last for the original band line-up.

During the last few months of his life in 1991, Freddie Mercury was determined that he would carry on making music until he was physically incapable of doing so. After the completion and release of the 'Innuendo' album early that year, Mercury and the rest of the band moved to their private studios in the peaceful lakeside town of Montreux, in Switzerland, where Freddie could rest in private and record whenever he felt able, with the other members of the band on-call 24 hours a day to rush into the studio whenever he gave the word, spending the rest of their time writing songs for him to sing. At the end of August he went into the studio and sang all but the last verse of "Mother Love", a song he had written with Brian May a short time earlier but which May was still writing lyrics for – as May later recalled; “I’m scribbling down words on bits of paper and he’s grabbing them off me and saying ‘roll the tape, I’ll do this one’. He knew it might be the last time he was ever able to sing, and in that case it was.” Mercury was unable to complete the song, but never returned to a recording studio – he died three months later, on the evening of Sunday 24th November 1991, at his London home, after having returned there from Montreux when he knew he was no longer able to sing. The rest of the band completed the track for 'Made in Heaven', with May taking over lead vocals for the last verse, and they ended the track with an excerpt from the song 'Goin’ Back', a cover version Mercury had recorded as a solo artist under the bizarre name Larry Lurex in 1973 but which had not been widely heard.

"My Life Has Been Saved" was originally a B-side to one of the single releases from 1989's 'The Miracle' album. With new instrumentation added by May, Taylor and Deacon during the 'Made in Heaven' sessions it makes a surprisingly bright and upbeat contribution to proceedings, when the whole album could so easily have become bogged down in sadness.

For me personally, "I was Born to Love You" is one of the highlights of the album, a fast-paced rock love song highly energised by May's guitar solo. Another song that Freddie Mercury originally wrote and recorded for his solo album 'Mr Bad Guy' in 1985, from which it was released as the first single and reached No. 11 in the UK charts. Again, May, Taylor and Deacon separated Mercury’s vocal from his original solo version, added a new Queen backing track and turned it from a lightweight, poppy love song into a pacey rock ballad.

"Heaven for Everyone" was originally recorded by Roger Taylor's other band 'The Cross' in 1987, with Taylor taking lead vocal on the single version and Freddie Mercury providing guest lead vocals on the album cut. This Mercury vocal was again stripped from its intrumentation and given the full Queen treatment, becoming one of the highlights of the album. How "Gangsters' Paradise" kept it at No. 2 in the UK singles chart is a mystery to me.

"You Don't Fool Me" is the second of the album's tracks to have emerged from those last sessions in Montreux in 1991, and although it's disco-esque dance flavour may not appeal to Queen's core rock and pop audience it is an interesting piece of experimentation for the band, showing that right until the end they were still exploring new musical avenues. And only Brian May could possibly get away with adding a rock-style guitar solo to what is essentially a bassline-dominated disco track!

"A Winter's Tale" was the last lyric Mercury ever wrote as he sat at the lakeside in Montreux, and although its syrupy sentimentality does go a little too far, the terminally ill Mercury's vocal heights on this song remain impressive.

The album closes with a reprise of the first track followed by a long instrumental section, which while impress does strike the casual listener as being slightly pointless.

Recommended: Yes

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