SWEET FREEDOM

Uriah Heep

Heavy Prog

3.45 | 428 ratings

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Hector Enrique like
Prog Reviewer

There are no more demons, magicians or symbolism in Uriah Heep's imaginary for their sixth album, 'Sweet Freedom' (1973), replaced instead on the cover by a bland and vaporous image of the musicians blurred in a reddish Martian background, for a proposal that opts for melodic and accessible structures, with a reduced but equally present contribution of the band's hard rock DNA and including some symphonic touches.

And so it is that "Sweet Freedom" unfolds between direct and neat atmospheres, like the restless guitar Funky of "Dreamer", the boogie rock of the active "Stealin'', the glam of the brief "One Day", the compact acoustic/electric ensemble of "Seven Stars", and the unexpected sonorities very close to the bossa-nova of the relaxed "Circus", whose contribution is limited, in my opinion, to the anecdotal and contrasting nature of its inclusion in the album.

But the band also gets 'serious' and dense with Ken Hensley's galloping, intense keyboards and David Byron's singing on the emotive "Sweet Freedom", despite the tiresome and unnecessary repetition of its chorus, with the mesmerising mid-tempo "If I Had the Time" and Hensley's lysergic moog, and finally also with Mick Box's affiliated guitar solos over the excellent sound carpet that Hensley's Hammond builds accompanied by Gary Thain's bass and Lee Kerslake's percussion, in the grandiloquent and epic "Pilgrim", a track that could be considered as one of the first ones that would feed years later on the still budding progressive metal.

"Sweet Freedom" may not carry with it all the magic of the band's previous works, but it manages to pull through because of the sheer quality of its performers.

3/3.5 stars

Hector Enrique | 3/5 | 2025-3-31

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