Sheer Heart Attack

May was ill in the summer of 1974, first with hepatitis and then a duodenal ulcer, so the band began without him and he returned midway through. They cut ten backing tracks at Rockfield in Wales between 7 and 28 July, overdubbed at Wessex and mixed at Trident, where the album became the studio's first 24-track project. May recorded Dear Friends and She Makes Me at AIR and wrote Now I'm Here while in hospital, a song that recalls the early tour with Mott the Hoople. Bring Back That Leroy Brown had 70 vocal tracks and had to be mixed down. Mixing finished with Now I'm Here on 22 October.

It was the first Queen album to include a song by every member. Deacon's first, Misfire, is here, and Stone Cold Crazy became the first song with a shared writing credit because nobody could remember who wrote the lyrics. Brighton Rock includes a three-minute guitar interlude that May built around an Echoplex, and Guitar World ranked it number 41 among the greatest guitar solos. The album reached number two in Britain and number 12 in the United States, where it was the first Queen album in the top 20. NME called it a feast at the time, and Pitchfork later said the band were here at the height of their powers.