Urie’s hybrid of “Rocky Horror,” “Bat out of Hell,” the Knack, Cheap Trick and Freddie Mercury has already managed to turn off some existing PATD fans, as derisive comments on their social media have indicated. (Meat started as a theater actor Urie became one later in his career, doing “Kinky Boots” on Broadway.) “Viva Las Vengeance” is nearly as much a testimonial to rock musicals as it is to the ’70s. Loaf, actually, given their mutual association with the legit stage.
You may start to think that just about the only ’70s figure Urie hasn’t evoked is Meat Loaf - until the closing track, “Do It to Death,” arrives and assures you that, no, he’s got that niche covered too. (It’s not really possible to copyright the one-note riff from “Getting Better,” is it?) Sometimes, interpolations are credited, from Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen” figuring into the power ballad “Don’t Let the Light Go Out” to Russ Ballard earning co-writing credit for “God Killed Rock and Roll” just because the title seems to be a clever, slight takeoff on the Argent/Kiss oldie “God Gave Rock and Roll to You.” “Banger” breaks into a mid-tune Thin Lizzy tribute “Say It Louder” owes a debut to the early reggae-loving Police “Sugar Soaker” segues from a glam-era hard-rock riff through a discordant ELO orchestral moment to a couple of nearly subliminal Beatles nods. Killer queens are the most clear and present reference, but there are dozens more that turn “Viva” into an enjoyable puzzle of allusiveness.
The homage gets almost comically overt in the track “Star Spangled Banner,” which almost sounds more like “Bohemian Rhapsody” than “Bohemian Rhapsody” sounds like “Bohemian Rhapsody” (you’d swear it was Brian May playing the sound-alike guitar) and packs more tempo-changing, suite-like segments into 3 minutes and 10 seconds than Queen did into 5:55 back in the day. You hear their vocal stacking in the constant falsetto background harmonies that threaten to soar even higher than Urie’s already operatic lead vocals.
“Viva Las Vengeance” sounds at times like the late, lamented ’90s power-pop band Jellyfish on speed - or like a far less self-serious Muse, to name maybe the only other two groups to ever have been as obsessed with Queen as he is.
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