Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Uriah Heep
Label: Bronze Records
Release: 1971
Rating: 4.5/5
That’s how it’s done. After the music critics tear you to shreds, you hit back even harder than with your first landing. The vicious Bird Of Prey opens the record with a properly psychotic, hard riff. With that heavy riff propped up by a rolling rhythm, it’s not hard at all to picture a steel, robotized bird of prey crashing around and wreaking havoc with its insatiable sharp beak and talons. The Park is the romantic opposite, soaked in flower power peacenik ideology. Well, let me not stray from the path. David’s angelic singing is an incredible contrast to the rawness of the opening song. The gentler the song you play, the more intense it comes out! Time To Live is once again built on an expressive, seriously heavy riff, with the Hammond organ and Mick’s axe working in lockstep. If I’m being a little nasty, twelve years later one of the pioneering NWOBHM bands used a very similar main riff in a pre-chorus. I’m talking about Iron Maiden and their Revelations, whether that’s pure coincidence or not (depending on who you ask).
Ken Hensley, who jumped in with Uriah Heep at a time when the songs of the debut were already finished, got to show all his genius for the first time on “Salisbury”. Lady In Black is sung entirely by Ken. A true master of the perfected acoustic composition, built entirely on just two chords (Am, G). Tambourines dictate the rhythm of the song. Ken says that on a November day he was watching a snowstorm and suddenly spotted an apparition outside. A girl dressed in black. He says himself that he doesn’t know why, but evidently it had to happen so that Uriah Heep could carry her message out into the world. The song is fragile and ice cold at the same time. The girl in black. Death and birth. Transformation. New life.
The title track is a masterpiece of a little over 16 minutes, a perfectly balanced fusion of rock music and a classical dimension, brought in by the woodwind arrangements. The weave of Hensley’s organ, Newton’s lively bass lines, Mick’s refined feel for adding tasteful guitar makeup (how neatly his solos sit inside the composition), David’s spontaneity on vocals, all of it peaking when the multi-colored vocal harmonies kick in. The drama of the shifting passages conjures up a heap of different moods and invites a parallel with Gill Evans’ orchestral arrangement of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with Miles Davis on trumpet (on “Sketches From Spain”, 1967). The feelings are strikingly similar.
With their second studio album, Uriah Heep showed incredible confidence and an unstoppable creative drive, with just two more albums separating the band from a breakthrough into the ranks of the immortals. Besides the six original remastered songs, this reissue brings seven additional bonus tracks, whose secrets will be revealed in more detail as you read the booklet, whose cover none of the band members was thrilled with. It was chosen on a whim by their label at the time.
Lineup
David Byron – lead vocals
Ken Hensley – organ, piano, slide & acoustic guitar, harpsichord, vocals on “Lady In Black”, backing vocals
Mick Box – electric & acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Paul Newton – bass guitar, backing vocals
Keith Baker – drums
Production
Gerry Bron
Track list
1. Bird Of Prey (4:05)
2. The Park (5:38)
3. Time To Live (4:02)
4. Lady In Black (4:33)
5. High Priestess (3:39)
6. Salisbury (16:02)
Album length: 37:59
BONUS TRACKS ON THE 1996 REMASTERED EDITION:
1. Simon The Bullet Freak (3:27) originally single b-side, also on North American versions of ‘Salisbury’ (1971)
2. High Priestess (3:13) edited version released as a single
BONUS TRACKS ON THE 2003 REMASTERED EDITION:
1. Simon The Bullet Freak – single b-side (=US album version)
2. Here Am I – out-take, previously unreleased version
3. Lady In Black – edit, previously unreleased version
4. High Priestess – alternate version
5. Salisbury – edit, previously unreleased version
6. The Park – alternate version, previously unreleased
7. Time To Live – alternate version, previously unreleased
