Made in Heaven is basically to Queen what Coda is to Led Zeppelin. When Freddie Mercury died there was no one under the illusion that the band could continue. But Mercury and co. intentionally fought to the end to fill out what remained of their lives with what filled it: more music. Innuendo, expected to be their last album, finished with Mercury still holding onto life. They moved onto the next project, but this one wasn’t meant to be completed. Hence the title.

The cover art of Made in Heaven is something that should be a tearjerker for any major Queen fan. Freddie Mercury, or rather his image, has his back turned on us with his fist raised in the air, ensuring his message will live on and inspiring confidence in the brokenhearted that he did while he was alive. Perhaps unintentionally, this bittersweet cover image bookends the cover of their first album, Queen. Freddie came alive on that stage, and is now stepping off it, going beyond the horizon.

But beyond these circumstances, what can be said of the album’s music? It’s generally the band finishing demos Mercury made while he was alive, and filling up remaining space by having Mercury sing on preexisting solo material since he didn’t have much time left for new tracks to be written. To tell the truth, most of the material is nothing interesting. It’s pre-Innuendo in the sense that it’s mostly simple ballad compositions, though fittingly solemn as a sort of eulogy. Contextually, it’s a fine postlude to Queen’s career, but this relaxed, soft version of Queen is not how I choose to remember them by and thus I almost never listen to it.

Ironically, it’s thanks to this final album that I ever got into Queen at all. There was a time when all Queen were to me was the band that wrote the repulsively overplayed sport stadium anthems, but at my friend’s pushing I looked into random individual tracks and came across “I Was Born to Love You.” This song, though you would never be able to tell by hearing it, is taken from Freddie Mercury’s solo album Mr. Bad Guy and dubbed over by the rest of the band to become their typical brand of choral pomp rock. I had never heard anything like it before, and couldn’t believe a standard rock band actually obtained such a sound. They were on a planet of their own, or otherworldly even, and when I began exploring their discography I found that unique worldview covered the entire career of one of rock’s most interesting acts in history.

I still quite like that song, but don’t really care for the rest of the material here. The ethereal intro of “Mother Love” sounds promising but it dips into more typical territory when Freddie’s vocal comes in. And “You Don’t Fool Me” is probably Queen’s most successful foray into dance-rock, though that’s not saying a whole lot. I have no animosity towards Made in Heaven due to the difficult circumstances surrounding it, but to be fair, it’s still Queen’s most inessential album. So be it, because if nothing else the album serves as a reminder that the past will always be there.