FIREFLY

John Lawton (previously of the great band Lucifer's Friend) and Trevor Bolder (of The Spiders from Mars fame) gave new life to Uriah Heep here! In my opinion, this produced one of the very best and most consistent Uriah Heep albums. John Lawton is a much better singer than David Byron ever was, Lawton can hit the high notes without any trouble and his distinctive voice is simply much more pleasant to listen to.

Another thing that makes this album stand out in the Uriah Heep catalogue is that it is better produced and all the instruments sound clearer and more powerful. The keyboards are more varied than on most other Uriah Heep albums. Usually, the Hammond organ plays the leading role. Here, on the other hand, we have electric piano and symphonic synthesizers playing a much larger role.

But, as always, the most important thing is to have good songs and we have many strong ones here; the title track, The Hanging Tree and the ballad Wise Man are all very good. There are always some lesser good material on Uriah Heep albums, but even the weakest ones here are a bit better than they were on Sweet Freedom, Wonderworld or Return to Fantasy.

Firefly is a recommended album. (If you like it I would also recommend the first five albums by Lucifer's Friend which was John Lawton's pervious band. Great stuff! In my opinion, much better and more progressive than Uriah Heep!)