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Uriah Heep - Demons and Wizards CD (album) cover

DEMONS AND WIZARDS

Uriah Heep

 

Heavy Prog

4.07 | 888 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Sinusoid
Prog Reviewer
2 stars I've never really gave into Uriah Heep completely, but every album I've heard thus far had some fine rocking moments that I could at least respect. DEMONS AND WIZARDS still has one rocking moment, but it isn't enough.

''Easy Livin'' is a pretty good head-banging track that deserves its airplay, a case for Uriah Heep's riffing ability. But of all the moments on DEMONS AND WIZARDS, this is the only good one. The rest of the album, well, I am not on the bandwagon to put it politely. Let's throw out the ''is it really prog rock'' discussion and get to the meat of the matter here.

The execution simply isn't there. The previous album LOOK AT YOURSELF had so many great, memorable riffs like the title track, ''Love Machine'' and ''Tears In My Eyes'', so Uriah doesn't have a riff problem overall. It just so happens on this album, little works (for me; it's really all subjective). I'm now convinced that if Uriah Heep isn't going full-throttle on the tempo, they implode into boredom. ''The Wizard'' is one of the worst openers I've ever heard; nonchalant tempo, singing that really isn't convincing (Byron's had better moments), and laughably predicable rhyming schemes plague the opener and foreshadow the remainder of the album.

I prefer to remember Uriah Heep as a hard rock band with Hammond organ, not a prog rock band. Keep in mind I've yet to listen to SALISBURY, so this is probably the proggiest I've heard the band so far. This new ''hard rock bordering on prog'' doesn't work at all for me; the musicians may be skilled enough to make such a transition, but I feel that there's something missing in order for that transition to work, and I don't know exactly what it is. They try hard to make ''Rainbow Demon'' and the epic ender work, but the musical end result is simply too boring to really convince me. That tremolo effect on the former track makes me cringe without question every time I hear it.

As much as I loathe this record, I would call DEMONS AND WIZARDS an essential listen in prog rock. You need to hear this at least once just to hear what the buzz is with this record. I am one of the minority that could never understand this album and finds the music too boring and somewhat unimpressive to really push forward.

Sinusoid | 2/5 |

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