After last year's excellent "InFinite" (Deep Purple) and "Trivium" (Procol Harum), and most recent live "The Beauty of Chaos" by Martin Turner (ex-Wishbone Ash), it's now the turn of a hard rock legend, Uriah Heep, to remind us to our good memory.
Uriah Heep offers a hard rock that remained anchored in the seventies, not a simplistic verse-chorus-solo hard rock where each musician thinks that the faster and louder he plays, the better he plays. Without his music being too complex, Uriah Heep has always been able to make the difference with some unexpected digressions and with his characteristic keyboard roars and his choruses. Markers that can of course be found on "Living the Dream".
The album starts with the supercharged 'Grazed by Heaven' with a rhythm that rolls off the beaten track, a beautiful guitar flight and aggressive vocals. Hard rock that moves with a catchy melody and an undeniable presence. The next three tracks remain in a heavy tone and while the mini-breaks or theme variations make 'Living the Dream' and 'Take Away my Soul' appealing, boredom begins to dawn on the linear 'Knocking at my Door'.
And that's where you can see the great bands. Uriah Heep is clever enough to change gear after this rough start: the three tracks that follow will alternate between hot and cold, playing on intensity and speed, slowing down the tempo seriously, ing acoustic passages, keyboards/voice duets, sounds of large organs or string orchestra... While remaining in the realm of hard rock, the melodies flirt with progressive (the long instrumental of 'Rocks on the Road') or pop (the "nananana" of 'Waters Flowin' '), introducing a diversity as convincing as it is welcome. If 'Goodbye to Innocence' and 'Falling Under Your Spell' return to a more direct yet seductive hard rock, 'Dreams Of Yesteryear' represents the ideal finale with its almost hymn-like melody that fades out (for once justified) with a "we're all brothers" side.
Mick Box is 71 years old? Phil Lanzon 68 ? Bernie Shaw, the youngster, 62? To hear with what ardor and enthusiasm they play on this album, we would gladly give them a little thirty. Proof, if proof were needed, that music keeps you young forever.