LIVING THE DREAM

This must be one of the strongest Uriah Heep in theier entire catologue. Produced by Jay Ruston, this album sounds really fresh but extremely heavy. And heavy it is; this is almost heavy metal, but with good taste.

The songrwiting is strong with progressive rock-overtones in the longer songs. Mick Box has a lot of solos and really stong riffs (he is 71!!! years old, and sounds really hungry and versatile). Phil Lanzon plays lots of organ. Het experimented with lots of keyboard-sounds in the past 30 years, but his organ-sound is really great and off course fits the sound of Uriah Heep.

Bernie Shaw sounds more raw than before. One of the greatest hardrock/heavy metal singer I can think off. And the backing vocals give the chorusses of the songs real catchiness....

The bassplaying of Davey Rimmer is less heavy than Trevor Bolder, but is okay. Russell Gilbrook is very different drummer than Lee Kerslake. They both play loud and have great chops. Russell plays more double bass, wich give the sound more a heavy-metal-flavour.

The first song "Grazed by Heaven" is also the single of the album and has a great tempo and some heavy organ and wahwah guitarsolos. Uriah Heep Always had the most heavy songs as openers to their albums, and I guess this one will make it into their liveset.

Almost any songs on this album is a killer, so I won't get into all of them. The prog-epic Rocks in the Road is worth mentioning because of its various tempo-changes and themes.

A lot of reviews say that Uriah Heep haven't released anything good between the 70's and "Wake the Sleeper", but this album combines the best of "Sea of Light", "Sonic Origami", the newer albums and the seventies.

I Always thought "Sea of Light" was their heaviest album, until "Wake the Sleeper", and now this album. This is a must-have album for all Uriah Heep and progressive hardrock/heavy metal fans world wide. At least every rock-enthousiast should listen this album, because of the great hooks, solos, huge chorusses and organsound.

Hell Yeah!