03.
Uriah Heep Look at Yourself 1971 (Bronze)
Hard Rock-Progressive Rock
Swirling organ runs & operatic multi-octave warblings!
Overview
I’ve often spoken about how unpopular ‘heavy bands’ were with music critics on both sides of the Atlantic at this time, with plenty of criticism and flak always flying around, but it seems that Uriah Heep came in for even more flak than normal! They were initially prime targets of the UK music press when it came to negative criticism and one reviewer even wrote “If this group makes it, I'll have to commit suicide” “From the first note, you know you don't want to hear any more." To other opinions which labelled the band as a poor man’s Led Zeppelin or Led Zeppelin plagiarists. As always these criticisms were way-off and the Led Zeppelin comparison showed just how little music reviewers understood ‘heavy music’ at this time! If they had, they would’ve known that Uriah Heep were a progressive rock influenced band, whose organ driven sound, had been influenced by the likes of Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly, Spooky Tooth and Vanilla Fudge, making the Led Zeppelin comparisons quite redundant. The band were immediately blessed with talented individuals in lead vocalist David Byron, whose vocal talents with their eccentric feel and high-pitched warblings, put him up on a level with the top vocalists of the time. Mike Box on guitar was a capable shredder of real talent, but the real creative element of the band was keyboardist Ken Hensley, whose rampaging organ was the cornerstone of the band’s sound and he was also the bands principal writer. Bassist Paul Newton would only feature on the band’s first three albums, but the real problem area for the band was always the drum stool, by their third album the band were already on their third drummer in Ian Clarke. Personnel changes would eventually be the scourge of the band as the years went by. Uriah Heep’s debut album
...Very ‘eavy...Very ‘umble, had mostly been a collection of great musical ideas rather than one cohesive effort. On the one hand, the album had contained early Uriah Heep gems such as “Gypsy” “Walking in Your Shadow” and the ballad “Come Away Melinda” songs worthy of any great album believe me! But on the other hand, the album had been let down by the band’s proggy experimentation and self-indulgent tendencies. For their sophomore set
Salisbury, the band had steered in a more cohesive proggy direction and still with hard rock overtones, this was the direction the band wanted.
Salisbury in my opinion, can be seen as an album where the band took a step backward in order to move forward and again it has some stellar tracks in “Bird of Prey” and “Lady in Black”. The whole album though, was ultimately let down by its sixteen minute title track that dominates side-two of the album, the song was just too unfocused to ever be seen as a lengthy heavy progressive classic, especially since lengthy progressive classics could be found aplenty at this time. So with all these factors littering their first two albums, how would the band fare on their third release
Look at Yourself?
David Byron- Vocals
Mick Box- Guitar,
Paul Newton- Bass
Ken Hensley- Keyboards/Organ
Ian Clarke- Drums
Production- Gerry Bron
Album
Look at Yourself- The perfect lead out track with its galloping intro all high on energy, as the band waste no time in laying down the foundations of the album on its title track. I think this song is a great example of the band showing their musical prowess.
I Wanna Be Free- A softer song based around a more ordered song structure, but beefed up with some heavy instrumentation and climaxing with a powerful workout.
July Morning- The showpiece track of the album and it’s 10 minutes of pure progression, beauty and extensive playing. It starts off with pastoral organ, an acoustic section before the Moog synthesizer starts to dominate. It’s basically the track that “Salisbury” never was from their previous album. David Byron at times sounds sensational here and truly cements his place as one of the great vocalists of his generation. Also features a stand-in by Manfred Mann on synthesizer.
Tears in My Eyes- starts off with a great Mick Box riff, this is a song that the band could’ve easily stretched out to 10 minutes, but the band have gone for a condensed feel here and it’s the song of a band firing on all cylinders.
Shadows of Grief- As far as I’m concerned the best song on the album and might be the best song they ever put out. This is 8 minutes of galloping energy and it’s Uriah Heep at their very best. The song dips in its middle section and slows down, before kicking into life once again and then shifts into more experimental territory, Ken Hensley is outstanding once again!
What Should Be Done- The most subdued track on the album and a song that needs to be dominated by the vocalist, which it is.
Love Machine- A punchy song where Uriah Heep sound like Deep Purple here, or do Deep Purple sound like Uriah Heep! It’s just a matter of opinion really.
Verdict
This is a basically a rip-roaring pearl of an album, full of stellar tracks and excellent instrumentation, combined with very strong songs throughout. A lot of this praise needs to be laid at the door of the band’s creative element Ken Hensley, who on
Look at Yourself has finally taken the band by the scruff of its neck and drummed out a cohesive classic of an album, that is all highlighted by his swirling playing style. This was an album that the band had always promised to do but had never delivered on until now. At times this album is a real high energy work-out, that gives over to progressive and experimental sections, but it never ever goes into pure jamming territory (always a dodgy area for some bands) So how does
Look at Yourself rank in the Uriah Heep discography? Well the album is the perfect fusion of hard rock and progressive rock, with neither musical genre overly dominating the other. In fact a song like “Tears in My Eyes” with its condensed feel, almost sounds like an early pomp-rock example and the album’s epic “July Morning” may well rank as one of the most important hard rock progressive tracks ever written and even rivals the brilliance of Deep Purple’s “Child in Time”. This album along with its follow-up album
Demons and Wizards, are seen as Uriah Heep’s finest ever achievements and both albums normally split Uriah Heep fans as to which is the best of the two!
Look at Yourself is blessed by fantastic musicians, of which Ken Hensley probably takes the prize as being the tightest of them all, but the real factor on this album is surely David Byron’s voice. I’ve ranked his voice right up there with the best, but unlike say Ian Gillan David Byron’s voice really is an acquired taste and does have its detractors. His high-pitched multi-octave warblings are not going to be to everybody’s taste and indeed at times I even find his voice can be over exaggerated, when a more simplistic approach may well have been better. That aside though, he was a great talent that eventually succumbed to his abuses and it’s no surprise that the likes of Rob Halford were greatly influenced by him.
Look at Yourself is worthy of its number three position on this list and it’s an album of great cohesion and delivery, that really needs several listens to really appreciate its depth and flowing consistency.