Sheer Heart Attack - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

NME wrote, "A feast. No duffers, and four songs that will just run and run: Killer Queen, Flick of the Wrist, Now I'm Here, and In the Lap of the Gods...revisited“. The Winnipeg Free Press commended "Brian May's multi-tracked guitar, Freddie Mercury's stunning vocalising and Roy Thomas Baker's dynamic production work", calling the album "a no-holds barred, full-scale attack on the senses". Circus referred to the album as "perhaps the heaviest, rockingest assault on these shores we've enjoyed in some time". Rolling Stone offered a mostly positive review, giving the album a 3/5 star rating, and concluding, "If it's hard to love, it's hard not to admire: This band is skilled, after all, and it dares". John Mendelsohn was unimpressed, writing, "I hunted all over both sides of this latest album for something, anything, even remotely as magnificent as "Keep Yourself Alive" or "Father to Son", only to end up empty-eared and bawling". As 1974 drew to a close, the album was ranked by Disc as the third best of the year and placed joint No. 24 of the 60 albums to appear in NME's end-of-year list.

Allmusic awarded the album 4.5/5 stars, writing, "the theatricality is now wielded on everyday affairs, which ironically makes them sound larger than life. And this sense of scale, combined with the heavy guitars, pop hooks, and theatrical style, marks the true unveiling of Queen, making Sheer Heart Attack as the moment where they truly came into their own". Mojo awarded the album 4/5 stars, noting that it was "often overlooked in favour of A Night at the Opera," and calling it "equally stellar". Q awarded the album 5/5 stars, calling it "indispensable" and "one of the great pop/rock admixtures of the '70s". Pitchfork awarded the album 9/10, writing, "Sheer Heart Attack not only improves on every aspect of their sound suggested by the first two records, but delivers some of the finest music of their career... This is the band at the height of its powers." The BBC wrote, "they stretched contemporary production methods to their very limit with multi-layered vocals and guitars and Freddie’s vaudevillian streak finally emerged... this was the album that finally saw Queen find their true voice".