RETURN TO FANTASY

It's a common feature on prog archives that many bands keep receiving high ratings for albums that were released way past the band's prime, simply because the only remaining ratings are from fans. By contrast, the most acclaimed albums suffer from low ratings by occasional onlookers who are not into the band at all.

Quite to my surprise, this Return To Fantasy is even discarded by most of the fanbase. Not that it can claim past greatness but at least it is a lot more consistent then the three previous albums. I like some of the songs here even more then what appeared on Demons and Wizards.

Return to Fantasy is a great epic track with plenty of vocal harmonies, good melodies and great organ and synth leads, nothing new but well-written and focussed. Shady Lady is forgettable rock 'n' Roll but Devil's Daughter is another catchy tune that wouldn't have been out of place on the debut.

Beautiful Dream counts even as one of my Heep favourites. Especially the synth intro is downright classic, but the entire songs is wonderful really. The high pitched vocals at the end reach heights that only Judas Priest and King Diamond have claimed since.

After a number of average songs, the album ends strongly with A Year Or A Day. I can really recommend those songs to everyone that loved Uriah Heep's classic albums.