Heep have long been a favourite band of mine. I must say certain eras lost their lustre for me after I played them a lot, but most of their catalogue is excellent, imo.
The debut album is a little hit and miss at times but anyway, their first 5 albums at least are umimpeachable classics. From 'Salisbury' through 'Magician's Birthday' barely a note is put wrong. I love pretty much every note of the first few Byron albums.
'Sweet Freedom' for me started a slight decline in material, though most of that album still sounds damned good, but it led to the thin sounding 'Wonderworld', half of which is disposable imo. You have some fine ballads in the title track, 'Shadows And The Wind', 'The Easy Road' and an underrated epic in 'Dreams'. The other songs aren't so hot.
'Return To Fantasy' goes to the other extreme with an over egged production of some fairly unremarkable AOR numbers- the title track is classic Heep, and 'Beautiful Dream', 'Devil's Daughter' and 'A Year Or A Day' could have been on any Heep album.
'High And Mighty' has some of their best material but also some of their worst- the first side is stunningly good, whilst 'Footprints In The Snow' and 'Confession' are truly gorgeous, moving ballads. The other songs are all pretty dreadful, really.
'Firefly' is one of their very best efforts. The sound is more AOR in tone, but 'The Hanging Tree', 'Wise Man', 'Sympathy' and the truly beautiful title track are some of the best Heep songs of all time. Lawton must be the most underrated vocalist in rock. His other albums, 'Innocent Victim' and 'Fallen Angel' are patchier, with too much Hensley pop/AOR. Still, some stunners emerge in 'Come Back To Me', 'Illusion', 'Choices', 'The Dance', 'Fallen Angel'. I quite like these albums and would take them over most of their 80s output.
After that, a slippery slope began. 'Conquest' has some great material- 'No Return', 'Fools', 'Out On The Street' and 'It Ain't Easy' stand up well, but the others are weak power ballads imo. 'Abominog' soon wore thin for me with its samey AOR production, though it's the best of their 80s output as all the other albums- 'Head First', 'Equator', 'Raging Silence' and 'Different World'- are the lowest ebb of all Heep, imo. Weak AOR material that could have been any anodyne REO Speedwagon type band. There were a few exceptions- 'Cross That Line', 'Different World' and 'When The War Is Over' are wonderful songs, the first two sounding far more progressive on 'Acoustically Driven', a stunning album.
Happily, 'Sea Of Light' returned them to form they hadn't seen for nearly 20 years. 'Mistress Of All Time' is maybe the best Heep ballad of all time, 'Love In Silence' is one of their all time best prog tracks and all the other songs are superbly crafted. 'Sonic Origami' has a few songs too many, but dig deep and many fantastic songs emerge- 'Between Two Worlds' is a very progressive gem and 'Heartless Land' betters almost every other ballad they've recorded, imo.
There's a potted history of Heep through my eyes.
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Uriah Heep
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