DEMONS AND WIZARDS

Uriah Heep's 4th album is one of their most popular among symphonic rock fans and while it has plenty of music to justify that status, it also has some lesser songs that indicate the steady decline that would follow on the ensuing albums.

The opening Wizard is just perfect. Wonderful song. In under 3 minutes it succeeds in creating a big epic feel. Traveller In Time is a lot less already. The lead riff is still fun but they had better vocal melodies before. The break around 2 minutes is painful, predictable chord changes like this are a typical feature of pop music and always indicate a lack of better ideas.

Easy Livin' is great of course, besides there's no way we'll go criticizing songs that serve as nickname for fellow reviewers. Poet's Justice on the contrary has the honour of being the first really forgettable song on a Uriah Heep album.

The next two tracks are classics of course, both Circle of Hands and Rainbow Demon can not be omitted from any Heep collection although only Rainbow Demon hits gold for me.

All My Life is ok but rather mediocre hard rock again. Paradise is a last decent moment but again they've done this much better on the preceding albums. The reissue added a track called Why which surpasses most of the regular tracks.

With only a good 20 minutes of excellence this album sits closer to 2.5 stars then to 3, but as this is the last but one good Heep album 3 will do.