Uriah Heep

When talk turns to British hard rock, the sacred triangle of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath immediately comes to mind. But if it were a quadrilateral instead, there's no doubt the empty spot would be filled by Uriah Heep.

With around twenty million LPs sold over the course of their career, they can't rival the commercial numbers of their three cousins, but they're the only other band in that field to have racked up significant figures, built a lasting career, and clearly influenced acts that came after.

Although critics tore them apart at the time (in the US someone dubbed them the worst band in the world), today their four albums released between 1971 and 1972 are regarded as classics of hard rock and, obliquely, of progressive rock too.

It's not as celebrated as "Demons And Wizards," it doesn't have the devastating wall of sound of "Look At Yourself," it doesn't boast an iconic cover like the one Roger Dean did for "The Magician's Birthday," yet "Salisbury" is the most eclectic of the four and, thanks to the title-track suite, certainly the most ambitious. Being the first in the series, it also marks the moment the project found stability and maturity.

The early days were in fact rather troubled. It took a full ten months, with two line-up changes along the way, to record the debut album "Very 'Eavy Very 'Umble" (1970). In the end, aside from the visionary exception of "Gypsy," it turned out to be a not particularly brilliant hard-blues record, weakened further by a couple of tracks completely out of place, such as the late-psychedelic "Wake Up" and the cover of Harry Belafonte's "Come Away Melinda" (which they turned into a poor man's Moody Blues rendition).

What propelled the band forward was the arrival of Ken Hensley, on keyboards, second guitar and occasional vocals. Tall, gangly, with extremely long hair, though not yet resembling a Native American the way he does today, Hensley joined the group at twenty-four, already with a couple of albums under his belt as a member of the Gods, an engaging psychedelic outfit that still draws the curiosity of a few enthusiasts today.

Hensley took part in the sessions for "Very 'Eavy Very 'Umble," but the songs were all already written, so he simply played what his bandmates had composed. For "Salisbury," however, he had time to bring in his own material, which was welcomed with enthusiasm. From that point on, until 1980, he would remain the band's main songwriter, though never in a domineering way, always ready to give the others room.

After he left, Heep would never again write a single memorable song, but as often happens in bands where the result exceeds the sum of its parts, it's worth noting the creative boost went both ways. With the Gods, Hensley hadn't shown any particular flair, and after leaving Heep his output essentially fizzled out.

That magic balance took shape precisely with "Salisbury." The recording sessions lasted just over a month, a testament to the excited atmosphere and to the band's awareness that they could carve out an important place for themselves in the music of the day.

By February 1971 the album was in stores, and the back cover marked the new line-up: David Byron (lead vocals), Ken Hensley (organ, piano, slide and acoustic guitar, harpsichord, vibraphone, vocals), Mick Box (electric and acoustic guitar, vocals), Paul Newton (bass, vocals), Keith Baker (drums).

If that list of instruments seems unusually long for a hard rock band, bear in mind that it also includes the twenty-four-piece orchestra featured on the suite. Indeed, even though the line between hard rock and prog was rather fluid at the time, the symbiosis achieved on these grooves is remarkably skillful. Staying within the borders of Albion, probably only "It'll All Work Out In Boomland" by T2 and "Argus" by Wishbone Ash reached comparable heights.

"Salisbury" opens with "Bird Of Prey," which had actually already been released the previous summer as the b-side of "Gypsy," and had since become a live staple. For a 1970 track, the sound is staggering. Not just for the unison forged by Hensley's distorted organ and Box's saturated guitar, about as heavy as anything heard up to that point, but also for the vocal arrangement, with Byron overdubbing a series of operatic-toned high notes that defy any common sense of restraint. The finished product is so aggressive it sounds more metal than hard rock. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Rainbow sound almost like variations on this ferocious charge.

The other thing that immediately stands out is the attention to detail. After the verse, strings reproduced on the Mellotron appear. Buried in the mix beneath the guitar's sustained notes, they nonetheless fill every empty space. They give the arrangement body, yet you barely notice they're there. The same goes for the organ, which during the verse wanders in the background, breaking away from the guitar, only to lock back in with it at the peak of the riff. It all feels so natural that you almost don't notice the song's unusual structure. There's essentially only the verse; the chorus has been replaced by an instrumental passage that plays more like a bridge, though marked by abstract vocal high notes. The trick repeats just once, then the song shifts completely and heads into an early fade-out.

Deliberately placed as the second track to create contrast, "The Park" is an extremely delicate ballad, a short circuit that brings together jazz, folk and baroque-era music, underpinned by harpsichord and the sustained chimes of the vibraphone. Byron, again both lead and counter-vocal, stays in very high register, but this time it's soothing and reassuring. The tone, one step away from a religious hymn, perfectly matches the description of a park, whose natural beauty nonetheless fails to bring relief to the soul of someone who lost a brother in war.

Box's fixation with the wah wah pedal explodes in full force in the solo that opens "Time To Live", a cadenced, textbook hard rock number, but not one to be underrated for that: its monolithic solidity, after two such atypical tracks, sounds almost reassuring.

The vinyl's first side closes in glory with the Heep's most famous tune, "Lady In Black". The ballad is a perfect example of how even a simple composition — in this case just a couple of chords — can come across as elaborate with the right care taken in arrangement and production. It's amusing to think that Byron doesn't appear on the band's signature anthem, but the singer openly said he didn't find much of value in it. The others wanted to record it anyway, no matter what, entrusting the vocal part to Hensley himself.

The very distant drum hits, the interweaving acoustic guitars (one starts, and by the end you can count four), the electric guitar fleshing out the rhythm in the background, the Mellotron strings this time clearly audible, the piano that enters buried in the mix before emerging forcefully in the finale, the moment when the other instruments vanish to leave room for the pulse of the bass, the impossibility of pinning down exactly how many voices are singing at once, all constantly treated with effects and strategically placed, and of course the wordless choral refrain, halfway between gospel and Gregorian chant.

"Lady In Black" is not, however, just a moment of sublime pop craftsmanship — it's also a successful anti-war statement. The protagonist encounters a supernatural entity in the form of a woman, and after an anguished exchange, regains the hope he had lost because of the long fighting and the destruction he had witnessed (and partly caused).

"High Priestess", which opens the second side, is a brilliant hard boogie with a spacey atmosphere, built entirely on the contrast between the torrential drive of the guitars and the stillness of the electric organ, placid and liturgical. Byron's operatic choruses come and go like gusts of wind, while Box lets loose in a long solo.

Closing things out are the sixteen minutes of the title track, the Heep's definitive prog moment and their longest, most layered song ever. A whole universe detonates within it, from the most frenzied jazz-rock jam to the most hypnotic repetition, from the most refined song to the wildest solo, from the driest funk groove to the most delirious psychedelic boogie, while Newton's bass seems intent on supplying study material for future trip hop producers.

The orchestra was arranged by John Fiddy, a library-music composer and respected session player, who here draws heavily on Latin tradition (from the paso doble to mariachi). He was chosen by producer Gerry Bron, a key figure in the album's success, a perfect practical counterweight to Hensley's restless, musically omnivorous spirit, as well as a skilled engineer who had already worked on rock classics such as the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's "Gorilla" and Colosseum's "Valentyne Suite".

"Salisbury" wasn't an immediate hit. It had to settle for modest, under-the-radar sales in Germany, Australia and the United States (where it peaked at number 103), while in the UK it went completely unnoticed. Only two countries took it seriously, sending it into the top 10: Finland and Italy (one of the many instances of the boot's outsized enthusiasm during the progressive rock era).

This is nevertheless one of those cases where the passing of time has only boosted the album's reputation, both on the wave of the commercial breakthrough the band would enjoy from 1972 onward, and thanks to word of mouth passed down among fans of harder rock. "Lady In Black" would go on to become immortal in 1977, when a 45 rpm reissue sent it soaring up the charts in German-speaking countries.

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31/07/2016