In Brief

* 1/2 Queen, “Made in Heaven,” Hollywood. With Freddie Mercury a sometimes strained vocal presence, these tracks--patched together after his death in 1991--give the band a schmaltzy, ballad-heavy send-off. The survivors gather their strength near the end for two minutes of Who-ish storm, then lapse into a 25-minute coma of hazy droning. Not a fitting way to memorialize a lively, flamboyant rocker.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).