SALISBURY

Uriah Heep's second album has its moments, but overall is rather bland. The long title track is an outstanding song however, with a great structure, an orchestra, and excellent instrumental sections. Otherwise most of what is here is little more than conventional rock music.

"Bird of Prey" The tranquil guitar that begins the album is no indication of the hard rock coming up. The vocal melody proves dissatisfying, and sounds like an inexperienced preteen came up with it. The vocal exclamations during the guitar solo are haunting, but not nearly as irritating as they have been on other albums.

"The Park" Quiet percussion and organ introduce an agreeable melody before the pleasing acoustic guitars enter. The lead singer engages in an off-putting falsetto performance, but the counterpoint vocal work somewhat compensates. During the second half, jazzy runs of guitar and organ, punctuated by the chirping of birds, take over just before a revisiting of the song proper.

"Time to Live" Returning to hard, heavily accented rock, Mick Box demonstrates some impressive lead guitar soloing. The vocalizations are sometimes painful to listen to.

"Lady in Black" Close in style to Neil Young, there is nothing particularly progressive about this narrative, acoustic-driven song, but it's definitely not one to pass by.

"High Priestess" Laced with piano, but dominated by guitar, this is a moderate rocker with a simple chord progression and decent vocals.

"Salisbury" The epic of the album lives up to that description. It has a chilling orchestra opening before the exceedingly loud organ calls the brass section back into the fore. There's a crunchy organ solo over bass playing that just can't stand still as the music grows quieter, the orchestra piping in now and again, until the sound grows full again. Even though this is an organ and orchestra-dominated song, Box's guitar soloing is furiously good- probably his most inspired moment on this album.