The Cosmos Rocks (CD - 2008)

Personnel: Paul Rodgers; Nigel "Stix" Burchett (drums).

Former Bad Company belter Paul Rodgers's bluesy, testosterone-heavy style might seem an odd replacement for late Queen singer Freddie Mercury's operatic art-rock acrobatics, but his collaboration with Queen's guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor has revitalized all three British rock stalwarts. The team-up began with a tour focused on classic Queen material, but for their first album of new material, the trio wisely avoids trying to recreate the Queen of yore; the album is credited separately to Queen and Paul Rodgers, and the songs seem to represent an equitable meeting of Queen's elegant, larger-than-life flash and Rodgers's down-and-dirty blues-rock grit, arriving at a new paradigm that alternates between the high-minded and the down-to-earth in what amounts to a classic-rock lover's wet dream come true. minimize