Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Uriah Heep
Label: Frontiers Records
Release date: 06.06.2014
Running time: 49:10
Rating: 3.5/5
“Outsider” is Uriah Heep’s 24th studio album overall and the first without the legendary bassist Trevor Bolder, who died of pancreatic cancer in May 2013. The in-between decade from 1998 to 2008 was bone dry for Uriah Heep as far as studio releases go. We did get a whole heap of compilations and live recordings of all sorts, though. Over the last six years, however, Uriah Heep have already delivered their third studio album.
»Wake the Sleeper« brought a radical turn toward the band’s pioneering retro sound, with plenty of stylistic traits that sensibly bring today’s Heep closer to their classic seventies era. »Outsider« keeps that course too. Uriah Heep have obviously decided that in their mature years they’ll settle into a niche that’s most palatable to their longtime followers, who have gone thoroughly gray and matured right along with the band over decades of sticking with it. Truth be told, the flip side is a kind of laid-back ease you can easily afford with the routine and experience of over 40 years in the business. The band’s evolution has stopped; the finesse in pulling the levers that please the crowds hasn’t.
So here again is that chunky Hammond curtain, magnifying the always clearly foregrounded guitar phrase of Mick Box’s trademark engraving, garnished with the polished, contagious melodicism of lead vocalist Bernie Shaw, atmospherically backed by the signature vocal harmonies. At the same time, we can conclude that, unlike »Wake the Sleeper« and »Into the Wild«, »Outsider« features by far the most engaged Russell Gillbrook on drums. The man has put more of his own drumming character into Heep’s music than ever before, and what really stands out on the album is the more generous use and prominence of the double bass drum pedal, which refines the basic rhythmic structures and livens up the dynamic flow of the songs (The Outsider).
Even with the new album, Uriah Heep remain seasoned masters of compactness and great melodic polish in their lead musical forms. The band is so experienced at laying out arrangements that it simply can’t go wrong. In these well-oiled spheres they exploit a proven recipe that makes them predictable and, to a degree, instantly easy to win over. »Outsider« once again carries an intensely dense, dynamic, compact and almost »live« sound in the production. The band again recorded in the studio »as a package«, all in one piece! As if they were playing a gig. Mick Box nailed most of the solos on the first take. That’s a great virtue and a guarantee of Uriah Heep’s big sonic authenticity. This album too, like a string of past Uriah Heep albums, has, along with polished musicality, an atmospheric element of bombast (pomposity).
»Outsider« brings a bunch of lyrics whose verses show that Uriah Heep have run dry and worn out when it comes to having something to say. They reuse phrases from the lyrics of older albums, and this poetic »orphanhood« sticks out at the points where songs slide into repeated choruses, which comes off as naive (e.g. the childish Rock the Foundation, Looking At You or Jessie). Luckily, there’s no song on the album with a chorus as »dopey« as the one on Nail on the Head from the previous album »Into the Wild«.
Of the band’s last three albums, »Outsider« counts as the brightest. It’s a markedly optimistic record, as the opening track Speed Of Sound makes clear right away, and so does the seductively swaying rock n’ roll-er right behind it, the album’s first lead single One Minute. Looking At You develops in the same vein and, given its high compactness of melodic forms, could safely have been picked as yet another single from the album. The title track is another one that wants to conjure the magic of hits like Free N’ Easy. A welcome shift in atmosphere comes from the album’s best song, Can’t That Take Away, which in its dramatic moment takes after the vibe of songs from the Uriah Heep albums »Sonic Origami« (1998) and »Sea Of Light« (1995) – particularly thanks to Mick Box’s guitar phrases and, of course, with the fundamental difference that Uriah Heep don’t use synthesizers on this album either, just the chunkiness of Hammond lines.
Uraih Heep feel comfortable in this »status quo« situation. Experience and routine have their back, so they can’t make a creative slip. In line with expectations, we got the album we expected from the band. It’s very high quality again. It »holds up« credibly and meets all the required musical standards of Uriah Heep’s stereotypical sound of the last six years. »Outisder« brings no conceptual challenges whatsoever. Neither stylistically nor sonically.
Lineup
Bernie Shaw – vocals, backing vocals
Mick Box – guitar, backing vocals
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, backing vocals
Dave Rimmer – bass guitar, backing vocals
Russell Gilbrook – drums, backing vocals
Production
Mike Paxman
Track list
1. Speed Of Sound
2. One Minute
3. The Law
4. The Outsider
5. Rock The Foundation
6. Is Anybody Gonna Help Me?
7. Looking At You
8. Can’t Take That Away
9. Jesse
10. Kiss The Rainbow
11. Say Goodbye
