Release date: 12.09.2018
Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Production: Jay Ruston
Rating: 9 / 10
Uriah Heep are rock’n’roll legends today. Not just a pioneering band that set some of the standards in rock, but legends, plain and simple. Holding the fort from the original lineup is the phenomenal guitarist Mick Box, without whom the band surely wouldn’t have lasted this long on the rock’n’roll map of the world. “Living the Dream” is, immodestly put, the band’s 24th studio album. And yes, really. Its predecessor “Outsider” (2014) showed signs of creative fatigue and thinning ideas, so plenty of people could fairly (and quite respectfully) hint that it was time for the legends to retire and finally pack their bags.
Anything but. After four years, the famous British art rockers are back on the scene with a splendid continuation of their musical fairy tale. With “Living the Dream” they’ve once again hit the sweet spot of quality, picking up right where “Wake the Sleeper” (2008) left off. In terms of quality, the album is at the very least on par with that one. Lately Uriah Heep have been on the road non-stop. They only wrapped up the shows late last summer, then hit the studio and knocked out the new album in no time. Around then keyboardist Phil Lanzon also put out an excellent solo studio album, which surely contributed to Uriah Heep’s greater songwriting “flexibility” on the new material, and Mick Box finally made good use of bassist Dave Rimmer’s songwriting talents too. The guy with the shortest tenure in Uriah Heep.
So Uriah Heep have put together a fresh garrison of songs marked by huge musical appeal and accessibility, while bringing some progressive rock impulses back into the writing, which shows in the stacking of multiple motifs within songs and in more dynamic compositions. There are quite a few infectious, epic, bombastic moments whose punch and freshness even recall the superb “Sonic Origami” (1998) and “Sea Of Light” (1995). Especially “poisonous” in this respect is the album’s third track Take Away My Soul, which opens straight into an unbelievably catchy chorus and closes with a stunning Box solo, where in a minute and a half this soulful master, in his trademark, instantly recognizable style of combining wah effect with craftily placed (wailing) pull-offs, builds a proper final crescendo loaded with top-notch drama theater. Take Away My Soul is the second single from the new album after Grazed By Heaven, and the edited version of the song has the closing section with the extended Box solo cut off entirely, since in that form it’s meant for radio play. A justified choice.
Uriah Heep have always been known for authoring a signature kind of magic, and it’s all over the new album too. In fact, they haven’t changed direction sonically at all. In the compositions they’ve leaned gently toward the style of their nineties albums, but not overly so. Just right. And they still sound like they did on the last three studio albums. So: sharpened guitar riffs backed by seriously chunky Hammond lines, the cannon-like rhythms of the superb Russell Gilbrooke and the thick, booming bass digging of Dave Rimmer. On top of it all, front and center, is once again the top-shelf vocal output of the charismatic Bernie Shaw. Everything is in its place. Exactly where it needs to be, and on top of that the album is packed with songwriting freshness and wit, which is what really matters. The opening Grazed By Heaven is a sharpened, fast-paced rocker whose structure of motifs clearly signals that Uriah Heep are bringing more progressive rock seasoning back on the new album, while still keeping their true art rock character of tight, polished songwriting in everything they do. The highlights once again sit in the chorus melodies, though many a song gets its attention stolen by a dramatized instrumental passage, most often placed at the end of a track. The title track is a good example. You’d honestly want to bolt on at least a pre-chorus, or turn the existing chorus into a pre-chorus and write an extra chorus, but that feeling completely fools the listener as the song unfolds. In this song Uriah Heep masterfully solved that “feeling that something small is still missing” by creating a total “break” in mood in the second half and driving it to an extremely dramatized instrumental finale, where the Hammond organ lines take over.
A special story on the album is Rocks In the Road, “stretched” to eight minutes and the longest piece on the record. The first half is a classic Uriah Heep tune, then the second half kicks in, where a passage breaks it open with a completely different, fully instrumental continuation, and the band conjures up a new, highly vibrant drama. The album’s sophisticated moment is defined by Waters Flowin’, backed by acoustic arrangements, which structurally could easily have sat on one of the Uriah Heep albums from the nineties. Goodbye To Innocence makes no secret of the fact that Uriah Heep haven’t lost their sense of fun, humor and mischief even in their later years, telling the story of a girl who teaches things you can’t learn at school, so losing your innocence in her company isn’t hard. Falling Under Your Spell is the song that, in 2018, stands as the equivalent of Uriah Heep’s one-of-a-kind songwriting gems, headed by Easy Livin’ and Free N’ Easy. The album closes with the outstanding Dreams of Yesteryear. This track rounds off the record beautifully, standing out with a special, distinctive atmosphere created by the chemistry of this band, which we often equate with the word magic. An incredibly sophisticated closing point, with no shortage of mysticism, longing and a cleverly slipped-in dose of British melancholy.
So “Living the Dream” is full of atmospheric twists, outstanding chorus melodies that grab you from the first listen, and a skillfully woven-in dose of progressive rock charisma that beefs up its art rock résumé. An album with just the right creative and songwriting variety. Played mostly in one (and at the same time first) take, with incredible organic sonic warmth and the noble chemistry that only this quintet has always been able to conjure up so masterfully. It sounds tight, cohesive and above all magical. Uriah Heepish, just as it should be. In a new era and with a new album, Uriah Heep have really squeezed an achievement out of their creative juices that is about as optimized as it gets. The songs will get along great with the band’s classics in the live set, and it honestly won’t bother anyone if the band decides to cram as many as five songs from the new album into the setlist. The album carries the listener along with incredible, flowing brilliance. It’s over in the blink of an eye. Fans of the band will be thrilled, and with “Living the Dream” Uriah Heep prove that as songwriters they’re nowhere near done, and that, unlike some of their (also still active) contemporaries, who stay on the live circuit purely on old glory and wrote their last (good) song twenty years ago, they’re nowhere near ready for the scrap heap.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Grazed By Heaven
2. Living The Dream
3. Take Away My Soul
4. Knocking At My Door
5. Rocks In The Road
6. Waters Flowin’
7. It’s All Been Said
8. Goodbye To Innocence
9. Falling Under Your Spell
10. Dreams Of Yesteryear
Musicians:
Mick Box – guitar, backing vocals
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, backing vocals
Bernie Shaw – vocals
Russell Gilbrook – drums, backing vocals
Dave Rimmer – bass guitar, backing vocals
