If you come from my side of the pond, be sure to check the latter track out, as it’s a good one. It’s quite surprising how buried the band are beneath the orchestra (it takes about ten minutes to get a guitar solo) yet you don’t find yourself minding, but be forewarned that the non-band instruments do dominate for most of it, and those of a less classic cinematic mindset may find themselves bored, the sillies – experienced proggers should love it if they let it carry them along.Īnnoyingly, there are substantial tracklisting differences between the usual and US versions of this album, the Americans not just getting some rather Metal artwork, but also High Priestess at the start of the album instead of Bird Of Prey and inserting Simon The Bullet Freak before the title track. The main attraction is, of course, the flamboyant sixteen-minute title track, which features a twenty-four piece orchestra and sounds more like the soundtrack to a Pink Panther film than you’d expect. It’s annoyingly short, just under four minutes long when it could have gone on for another ten, but is followed by the great Lady In Black, which has a melancholic feel aided by the extended, and awesome, group wailing.Įverything throughout is very melodic and laid-back, with little of the stomp that fans of the band’s debut will expect, although the soloing that kicks off the excellent High Priestess (my personal favourite track from this album) makes up for it. Time To Live is where things really kick off, guitar and organs backing a gloriously upbeat performance from Byron with a great solo from guitarist Mick Box. In some ways, I’d have preferred following track The Park to open the album, starting off as it does with gentle acoustic guitars and very soft organs, building into a rather gorgeous ballad with a great bit of proggy keyboard action partway through. Don’t be put off, however, as it’s hard not to be pleasantly overwhelmed by the falsetto overload that greets you on opener Bird Of Prey’s arrival, the band heavy as ever and more than capable of setting into a captivating rock groove behind vocalist David Byron, although it’s not the greatest opening track ever. More firmly in the Prog zone than before, it features a sixteen minute epic on one side, and streamlined the songwriting on the other to somewhat avoid the high drama of previous epics like Gypsy (as much as I like that classic tune, I can’t fault their decision) in favour of solid, heavy, rock songs that still stand with the best nearly forty years later.įor what it’s worth, you can partially blame Salisbury’s less-than-brilliance on keyboardist Ken Hensley getting the majority of writing credits this time around. Very ‘Umble or Look At Yourself, you will like it better than Salisbury – a shame, as fans of the band will doubtless be aware, as it has more than enough to make it worthy of your time. It’s not Salisbury’s fault that it’s wedged between two of the band’s acclaimed classics, but stuck there it is, and so it can’t help but feel slightly inferior to them. The second album from perennially underrated British rockers Uriah Heep is a bit of an unfortunate one.
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