There will always be those that say that Queen cannot exist without Freddie Mercury. And it is true that the contribution of probably the most charismatic rock vocalist and composer played the bigger part in Queen meteoric rise to the pantheon of rock gods.

So now we find ourselves in the presence of Queen’s first studio album without Freddie. And here is the dilemma that I mentioned before. Can the album be Queen if  there is no Mercury? The answer is yes, but it depends on what each one of us considers Queen to be. If for you Queen begin and end at “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “One Vision” or anyone of their big hits, then answer is no. However we shouldn’t forget that the songs the largest airplay are not classic Queen. “I Want To Break Free” for example, has nothing in common with “Tie Your Mother Down” even if both tracks represent the band at different times.

On this album therefore don’t expect the pompous and flamboyant elements that made up so many of Queen’s previous albums. Paul Rodgers doesn’t try to copy Mercury’s style and prance around the album like a peacock, bloated with exaggeration like his predecessor. On the contrary, he gives a humble performance which is reminiscent of his days with Free or Bad Company, and let’s not forget that Rodgers was the one that gave these bands their sonic identity.

Songs like the title-track, “Time To Shine”, “We Believe” or “C-lebrity” are Queen-like. Not Queen of “A Kind Of Magic”, but you can tell from song structures, the chord progression, the vocal harmonies and the production that they are Queen. On the other hand, tracks like “Through The Night”, “Still Burning” or “Voodoo” are so dominated by Paul Rodgers that you start to think whether May and Taylor chose Rodgers because of his voice or whether the effect of Paul in the band was so much that the two remaining members decided the change of musical direction after they hired him. This question is even more relevant if you think that songs such as “Time To Shine”, which is a Queen sounding track, was written by Paul Rodgers, while “Still Burning” which belongs to the blues-rock genre, was written by May. The only one that appears to be faithful to his style of writing is Taylor and this is what restores the cosmic balance within the album.

In any case, the album is very apply titled. This disk rocks. In a different way than were used to from Queen but it does rock.