Even Brian May admits it hasn’t always been easy being Brian May. ‘I’m going to make a little space around me,’ he sings on Space, the short, otherworldly intro to his second solo album, 1998’s Another World, sounding like the loneliest voice in the cosmos. ‘No one can come in.’
A man whose talent seemingly comes with a large side-order of sensitivity, May was going through what he calls “emotional upheavals” when he began work on Another World. Yet where his 1992 debut album Back To The Light and Queen’s bittersweet 1995 swan song Made In Heaven felt like extensions of the grieving process in the wake of his friend and bandmate Freddie Mercury’s death, Another World sounded like the work of a man embracing the world again, despite whatever personal turmoil he was going through.
This expanded, two-disc is both welcome (the original album is long out of print and not even on Spotify) and fascinating. If nothing else, it provides an intriguing snapshot of the guitarist’s many facets. There’s the unsung heavy metal godfather of and the ridiculously OTT (the latter has Foo Fighters man/Queen fanboy Taylor Hawkins depping for the late, great Cozy Powell who playsand the dewy-eyed balladeer of There’s May the fanboy too, ceding the spotlight to longtime inspiration Jeff Beck on
