Brian May Gold Series launched with expanded reissue of Back To The Light

(Image credit: Richard Gray @ Queen Productions Ltd)

Queen guitarist Brian May is to reissue his 1992 solo album Back To The Light. The album, which has been unavailable for some time, will be rereleased on August 6 and form part of the newly announced Brian May Gold Series.

“I was a little nervous at the beginning, thinking what is this going to dredge up in me?," says May. "But I loved getting back in there. I’m really just hoping it will connect with people who have never heard this stuff before. They know me as guitarist for Queen. Some know me as an astronomer. Some know me as a campaigner for animal rights. I’m a sort of evangelist for 3-D Victorian Stereoscopy. But very few people have heard my solo output.

"So I’m excited to see how this turns out. I found it fascinating going back in there and rediscovering why I wrote certain things. What they meant to me. How we recorded. Some of it is so massive in the recording I can hardly believe we pulled it off - it’s very epic, some of it. And I like that.

"And at the same time, there’s little corners of it which are very simple, very understated, very emotionally naked. I discovered so much of what I’m saying in the album I still feel. I still feel those dangers, those fears, those hopes, those dreams."

Back To The Light will be available on multiple formats, with expanded editions including a second disc, Out Of The Light. Formats include a collector’s edition box set featuring a white-vinyl LP with 2 CDs, a 32-page book, a 12” art print, and an enamel badge. The album will also be released also on single black 180g vinyl, CD, deluxe double CD, cassette and digital formats.

Bonus disc Out Of The Light features a mixture of unreleased tracks, alternate versions, and songs recorded live at the Palace Theater, Los Angeles in April 1993 and London's Brixton Academy two months later. Also included is a version of Queen's Tie Your Mother Down recorded on the Jay Leno show with special guest Slash.

Back To The Light is available to pre-order from the Queen store.

Back To The Light tracklist

1. The Dark
2. Back To The Light
3. Love Token
4. Resurrection
5. Too Much Love Will Kill You
6. Driven By You
7. Nothin’ But Blue
8. I’m Scared
9. Last Horizon
10. Let Your Heart Rule Your Head
11. Just One Life
12. Rollin’ Over

Out Of The Light tracklist

1. Nothin’ But Blue - Guitar Version
2. Too Much Love Will Kill You – Guitar Version
3. Just One Life – Guitar Version
4. Driven By You Two
5. Driven By You – Ford Ad Version
6. Tie Your Mother Down (Featuring Slash) (Live on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno)
7. Too Much Love Will Kill You (Live at the Palace Theatre, Los Angeles)
8. ’39 / Let Your Heart Rule Your Head (Live at the Brixton Academy)
9. Last Horizon (Live at the Brixton Academy)
10. We Will Rock You (Live at the Brixton Academy)
11. Driven By You – Cozy and Neil Version ’93

Brian May: Back To The Light — (Image credit: UMC)

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.