Album of the week Taking centre stage

Roger Taylor is one of a handful of drummers not content to just sit behind the kit.

Playing with the flamboyant figures including Freddie Mercury and Brian May may have distracted fans from his virtuosity.

But Taylor, who has taken on lead vocals with Queen on more than one occasion, is the owner of a decent falsetto and is more than competent on guitar, bass and keyboards.

Remember, a band with

songwriters he was responsible for classics such as ‘Radio Ga Ga’, ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’, ‘A Kind of Magic’ and ‘One Vision’ as well as having a hand in ‘Under Pressure’ and ‘Innuendo’ .

The first member of Queen to release a solo album back in 1981, ‘Outsider’ is his first new longplayer since 2013’s ‘Fun On Earth’, and makes a fine case for Taylor as the unsung hero of Queen.

The album’s dozen tracks were written in Cornwall during the first national lockdown – when the drummer should have been touring with his band and Adam Lambert – and include a socially-distanced duet with LA-based KT Tunstall on ‘We’re All Just Trying to Get By’.

The dozen songs here are less ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ bombast and more classic rock cool, with more in common with the art rock of 10cc and the shredding of Guns N’ Roses than Queen’s campy heights.

In the main, Taylor is flexing his musical muscles across a range of genres, from the psychedelia of opener

‘Tides’ to his glam rock cover of ‘The Clapping Song’.

There are attempts at political commentary, largely a no-no in Queen, on ‘Gangsters Are Running

This World’ and its low-sung, faintly funky sister version later in the album.

Butdespiteitsat-timespessimistic take on the environmental crisis, Taylor’s nous for an anthemic, upbeat chorus can alwaysbereliedontoliftthemood.