Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Uriah Heep
Label: Castle Communications
Release: 1989
Rating: 3.5/5
“Raging Silence” is Uriah Heep’s seventeenth studio album, and the one that, after another commercial stumble (or outright wreck) with “Equator” (1985), got the band back on its old tracks and back on its feet. It’s a pretty cautious record, and at the same time the one that introduced a revived band, after 1985, when they were piecing themselves together out of the rubble left by the last tornado of their career. Quick recap: after the failure of “Equator”, the split with Sony Records and a near-second breakup of Uriah Heep, the gaps in the lineup were filled by Grand Prix singer Bernie Shaw and keyboardist Phil Lanzon, who had been playing with The Sweet at the time, with Kerslake on drums, Bolder on bass and Box on guitar. The rebuilt Uriah Heep first toured heavily for three years, and they clearly found a winning formula for living and working together, because that lineup has held all the way to this day.
Three years after the new Uriah Heep formed, “Raging Silence” came out in 1989. It was definitely a test-run record, but one that didn’t disappoint anyone who knows real hard rock magic. The album drew great reviews, especially for its ultra-melodic, rock-and-roll-on-fire tracks, delivered in a straight-up “Abominog” outfit, like More Fool You, Cry Freedom, Blood Red Roses, Rich Kid, Bad Bad Man, and a great cover of The Argent’s Hold Your Head Up, which, just like Blood Red Roses before it, was also released as a single. Uriah Heep clung pretty diligently to this move of putting covers on their albums all through the eighties, since the charts were full of hits born from reworked originals back then. So they also decided to put on “Raging Silence” a song by the Australian band Cold Chisel, When The War Is Over, and Lifeline, which originally belongs to Bobby & The Midnites. “Raging Silence” is an excellent dose of melodic hard rock and, to put it bluntly, the first fully consistent record since the days when the legendary John Lawton was still singing for Uriah Heep. On it we can once again enjoy high dynamics that never let up at any point, and we have the fact to thank that the “new era” Uriah Heep poured all their explosive classic-school hard rock into it, seasoned with the trademark Heep touches (like multi-part vocal harmonies, Box’s wah-wah soloing, massive walls of riffs), to a degree that no Uriah Heep album from the eighties got.
Even though Uriah Heep were finally stable after Shaw and Lanzon joined, they stayed on small deals and became a smaller and smaller band. “Raging Silence” is a great “come back” album that boasts a higher level of maturity and proved with its release that Uriah Heep were far from saying their last word! Sadly, Legacy Records didn’t manage to push the album onto the market visibly enough, so it sank sadly off the radar of the market niches and was forgotten or overlooked far too quickly. “Raging Siolence” is a classic “melodic hard rock” album, presenting a band that is still damn wild in the studio and hungry for music and musical expression, one that hasn’t lost a single bit of its brilliant innate feel for writing punchy songs that hit you from the first listen. At the same time, it’s the start of a new era. With “Raging Silence”, Uriah Heep grew up. They somehow sensed that the time had come to finally take things into their own hands and start writing music to their own taste, without outside pressure, nudging or commercial pandering.
Lineup
Bernie Shaw – vocals
Mick Box – guitar
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, backing vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass, backing vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, backing vocals
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Brett Morgan – drums
Frank Ricotti – percussion
Production
Richard Dodd
Tracklist
1. Hold Your Head Up (4:33)
2. Blood Red Roses (4:10)
3. Voice On My TV (4:20)
4. Rich Kid (4:49)
5. Cry Freedom (4:34)
6. Bad Bad Man (4:11)
7. More Fool You (3:34)
8. When The War Is Over (5:09)
9. Lifeline (4:53)
10. Rough Justice (4:21)
Album length: 44:34
BONUS TRACKS ON THE 1998 REMASTERED EDITION:
1. Miracle Child (4:11) single b-side
2. Look At Yourself (7:20) Live recording from 1987,
b-side of ‘Blood Red Roses’ 12″ single
3. Too Scared Too Run (3:58) Live version from 1987,
previously unreleased
4. Corina (4:46) Live version from 1987,
previously unreleased
5. Hold Your Head Up (5:53)
extended version released on 12″ single
6. Blood Red Roses (4:53) extended remix ,
previously unreleased
