ABOMINOG

Hard album to rate: something between 3 and 3.5 stars, I guess. The first post Ken Hensley UH album is certainly not a favorite among many fans, but it is also very good. Ok, their sound changed a lot, but let´s see that the times were not the best neither for progressive nor for heavy rockers. Abominog is an excellent AOR-hard rock-pop album. In that field they were highly successful, although I might also point that they´re not sounding much like Uriah Heep as we know it. But again, they were not sounding like Heep since David Byron left anyway.

Only MIck Box and drummer Lee Kerslake remain from the classic line up, so I guess the others influenced a lot for the changing of the sound (and adapting to the times). Peter Goalby is surely a much bettter singer than John Sloman. It´s only ironic that one of the album´s best tracks was penned by Sloman and the also gone Trevor Bolder (Think It Over). Too Scared To Run is another great song. The remaining tunes are not as good, but they are good nevertheless.

For the time it was released Abominog seemed like a sellout for some, but unlike many other of their peers, they actually manage to produce a good, convincing hard rock album. It helped to bring them back on track and proved they were far from dead. It was actually a shot in the arm for them.It has much more power and conviction here than much of they´re doing around the period. I don´t really like their follow ups in the 80´s (the 90´s till now was another, much better story), but Abominog was the right album for that period and I was even surprised how much I still like it, after all these years. Certainly this is not a good start for a novice, but if you like good, well played AOR, and is an open minded UH fan, you should give it a try.