Queen Reign Supreme Once Again

Thirteen years after their last album, and 17 years after the death of incomparable frontman Freddie Mercury, Queen are looking, once again, like champions of the world. With a new singer — Paul Rodgers, formerly of Bad Company and Free — a new album and a monumental tour covering 20 countries in 11 weeks, the band with the bestselling album in the history of the U.K. is making a dramatic return to the spotlight.

Guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and Rodgers kicked off the tour in September with one of the biggest concerts of all time, an AIDS benefit in front of more than 350,000 people in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (The show will be screened in hundreds of U.S. movie theaters on November 6th — for more info, see Fathom Events.) Billed as Queen + Paul Rodgers, the trio have toured before, in 2005, but this time, there is a new reason to get back onstage: the release of The Cosmos Rocks, Queen's first new album since 1995's Made in Heaven.

In November 2004, May and Taylor performed with Rodgers at a U.K. Music Hall of Fame induction dinner. At the time, May and Taylor were busy overseeing the various productions of the Queen stage musical We Will Rock You, and May was also finishing his doctorate thesis in astronomy. "It was supposed to be just that one night," says Rodgers. "But we came off so buzzed by what we'd done, we all thought we should do some more. There was a certain spark in whatever we played, whether it was my material or Queen material. It seemed the logical next step to see how far we could go with it, and whether it would work with new songs."

Shortly before finishing the album this summer, the trio are gathered for lunch in the garden of Taylor's 13th-century estate — a former priory southwest of London — to discuss the events that led to the creation of The Cosmos Rocks, which was recorded upstairs in this very residence. "Writing together," says Taylor, "was a dive into the dark — really tentative at first." But when Rodgers offered up a song called "Time to Shine," the ice was broken. "It was very suitable for us," says Taylor. "Quite grand and big." Adds May, "That song was the first time we thought, 'Ooh, we have a record here — this actually sounds like us.'"

"Time to Shine" — a centerpiece of The Cosmos Rocks — is big, all right, with a propulsive "Pinball Wizard"-style intro, thumping drums, a snaky solo from May and a hint of Eastern drone in the vocal arrangement. In a small playback room off the studio (where drinks are served in Queen glasses resting on Queen coasters), the group listens to 13 tracks in various states of mix. "Surf's Up...School's Out" opens with May's trademark stack of guitars, giving way to a stop-and-start arrangement featuring an instantly recognizable wall of harmonies, dissonant piano and Rodgers singing, "I've got a criminal urge to twist and shout." ("There's quite a few retro touches on the album," says Taylor, "which I think at our age we're entitled to use with impunity.") More straightforward is "Voodoo," a loose, bluesy groove that was mostly recorded live in one take, after a session spent jamming on "House of the Rising Sun" and other classic tunes.