WONDERWORLD

The first side of this album is very good. The title track, The Shadows And the Wind and The Easy Road are all really great songs! Maybe I am biased because I really like the live DVD Acoustically Driven where these three songs are (excellently!) performed? Suicidal Man and So Tired are much less interesting but you don't notice that too much, since they are wedged in between the three great songs I mentioned. The Shadows And The Wind, with its extended a capella vocal section is particularly interesting (Queen must have been inspired by this song when they wrote The Prophet's Song for their A Night at the Opera album a year later.)

The second side of the album is much weaker, with only Dreams standing out as a decent song. I used to like this album a lot and I still love some of the songs on the first side. But, Wonderworld doesn't really deserve a high rating. Still, I give it three stars for the interesting moments. Overall, I think that this is a decent Uriah Heep album, even slightly better than the likewise uneven Sweet Freedom (that came just before it) and Return to Fantasy (that came just after it).

Good, but uneven.