We continue our look back to the music of 50 years ago….
How would you describe the band Uriah Heep to someone who has never heard of them? Would you call them a prog-rock band? They certainly have aspects of that genre like the title track of their second LP “Salisbury” released in early 1971. Are they a metal band? At times, although I would be hard-pressed to call any band metal with a song like “The Park” featured on Side one. And the vocal operatic pyrotechnics of David Byron almost send them into parody territory for me. Yet the music is reliably rocky when you concentrate on the guitar licks of Mick Box and the hammering organ chords of Ken Hensley, and the tight harmonies the band can achieve. Hensley also wrote many of the tunes on the LP including the very fine Lady In Black and the rocking High Priestess. Uriah Heep wasn’t really on my radar until later with Easy Livin and their LPs of 1972 but for fans of rock with a little taste of prog thrown in, check out this early slice of the Heep catalog and rock on.
