There is a plethora of Progressive Rock and Metal bands out there with an ever growing progosphere to boot. Yet, today’s prog gets dangerously close to the state of being predictive. Some think good prog needs to be djents and only djents, plus some high pitched wailing. Others profess that only chaos will pay homage to the mighty gods of progressive nirvana. Loki preserve us – forsooth! [...]
…Very ‘Eavy …Very ‘Umble just takes off like a rocket with Gypsy straight into Uriah Heep‘s début album back in 1970. And what a début! Starting a first ever album with a hit straight away is a feat not easily repeated. Stellar!
Of course with David Byron‘s pipes, Ken Hensley handling the keyboard madness and other things – ok, some of the vocals too – plus Mick Box doing the usual stellar things with his guitar, all should be good. Right?? Well, not quite. [...]
Well, I have dabbled in Progressive Rock and Metal for a while and more in the modern theme of things, if we can call it that. But far into the past, there already were jewels that we tend to forget. Salisbury, the 2nd studio album of the olden times Uriah Heep is one of them. The band’s name derives from the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. Actually the antagonist hero in the story, no less.
Starting with ‘Very ‘eavy, Very ‘umble’ – the band’s first record ever – Uriah Heep went on full progressive mode with Salisbury. Actually, this piece of work – I am tempted to call it a masterpiece – was way ahead of its time. Most of the other gigs liked to produce the flower power induced and drug infused bullshit that was staple at that time. And others LSD’ed themselves through Rock and Hard Rock with sometimes spectacular and at other times spectacularly bad effects. [...]
