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Uriah Heep - Fallen Angel CD (album) cover

FALLEN ANGEL

Uriah Heep

 

Heavy Prog

2.46 | 226 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
1 stars Their last two albums were not so bad, after all. So, what to expect from this one ?

Well, I don't know whether or not the Angel has fallen, but the Heep did it. And pretty low, I'm afraid.

This album is a combination of pop oriented songs : "Woman Of The Night" is quite catchy : great rhythm and good melody. The Heep does not reproduce its legendary opening numbers, but this one is not bad at all. "Falling In Love" and "Put Your Lovin' on Me" are somewhat weaker, although rocking alright. They are disco-pop-rock (?) oriented (a la Grease or ELO). Rather poor I must say (especially the backing vocals).

The rock ballad "Come Back to Me" is a bit anachronous in those punk / new wave days. Reminds me of a very attempt of "Love Hurts". I really do not like this kind of songs. You can easily press next to avoid this mellowish and poor "musical" moment.

The quality of the album goes on with its descent to the abyss with the next three tracks : some disco influence again with "What Do You Say". "Save It" and "Love or Nothing" being the lowest point of their career so far IMO. As in their previous effort, the backing vocals are real bad. It is really hard to bear such miserable bunch of songs.

"I'm Alive" has a gorgeous guitar intro and is quite hard-rocking. Great Box and Hensley but Bolder on bass playing is absolutely outstanding. One of the very few good songs of this album. On the contrary, the closing number is again very weak : another ballad of no interest at all.

On the remastered CD, one gets four bonus tracks. Three B-sides. There are some (very few though) examples of great B-sides in the rock history. But these are not. "Gimme Love" is a good blues/rock song. Again very Glenn Hughes influenced. It is my preferred song of the whole. Great rhythm and superb bass playing (as usual). The out-take "A Right To Live" is also a good number. Way better than most of the original album songs. It is unbelievable why it did not make the original album. Maybe too rock a song ?

The last one "Been Hurt" has John Sloman on the vocals (he will be their singer as from the next album). Great guitar work but real bad vocals.

The Heep produced his most pop-oriented album so far. It is totally uninspired, insipid. A complete mess. By far their poorest one. One can expect the worse for the things to come...

One little star.

ZowieZiggy | 1/5 |

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