SALISBURY

3,5 stars really. This second album , although much better , is still not perfect , is the one I prefer from them and mostly because of monstertrack Salisbury. Yet another line-up change with another drummer but the rest remains stable for a while . Bird Of Prey and Park are good hard-rock numbers and the highlight of side A. But really , we are all waiting for the title track , the unique example (to my knowledge anyway) of a suite from Heep, and probably the main reason ( if not the sole ! Roger Dean covers do not make prog albums on that feature only) for the inclusion of this band in this site. This Salisbury track shows how much the band was talented and gives me a sore feeling for they have wasted themselves (relatively speaking of course for the following 4 albums are good hard rock) in a direction different than what they achieved in this 16 + min suite - there are even horns on it. Lady in Black is also good.

I was relatively surprised that most of the first CD editions did not respect the album vinyl cover but this is now repaired. Apparantly the art work was different on each side of the Atlantic