Uriah Heep
Outsider
Frontiers Records
2014
This new release from the legendary Uriah Heep won’t be a chance to write down some things about the band’s history. If you do not know them, then bad for ya… if you do know a little about them, then good for ya and if you’re a fan, then I have nothing more to say about them – thing that I wouldn’t do anyway.
Let’s cut to the chase then. New work – the first with the new bassist Dave Rimmer after the death of the long time contributor Trevor Bolder (R.I.P.). At this point Mick Box (mastermind, guitars, songwriter) & his Uriah Heep have nothing to prove to anyone and I believe they only keep it going just for the fun of it. They had their golden era, they lived some great years and they also offered lots of rock classics to the music world… so what’s left rather than tour, do your thing and give people the chance to listen to some amazing tracks live on stage. So far so good. Uriah Heep should have kept it going like this by releasing studio albums once in a while. They cannot release anything bad – that’s more than obvious but the magic of the old days has gone along with David Byron (R.I.P.) and Ken Hensley.
Mick carries on the legacy all by himself but he should take it slow. The record sales have drooped globally for any band and the music ain’t at the same level that it used to be back in the 70s & 80s. Uriah Heep should continue touring and giving the chance to rock fans to see them and hear their back catalogue but I guess a new album every so often is not on demand.
“Outsider” is a solid album with fine performances, a great production – again by Mike Paxman (Status Quo, Asia, Judie Tzuke, Nick Kamen, etc.) but without any track that stands out or any classic one – yeap they have numerous classics so that would be kind of a redundancy. No matter what, Uriah Heep will always have a place on the rock Pantheon…
Let’s cut to the chase then. New work – the first with the new bassist Dave Rimmer after the death of the long time contributor Trevor Bolder (R.I.P.). At this point Mick Box (mastermind, guitars, songwriter) & his Uriah Heep have nothing to prove to anyone and I believe they only keep it going just for the fun of it. They had their golden era, they lived some great years and they also offered lots of rock classics to the music world… so what’s left rather than tour, do your thing and give people the chance to listen to some amazing tracks live on stage. So far so good. Uriah Heep should have kept it going like this by releasing studio albums once in a while. They cannot release anything bad – that’s more than obvious but the magic of the old days has gone along with David Byron (R.I.P.) and Ken Hensley.
Mick carries on the legacy all by himself but he should take it slow. The record sales have drooped globally for any band and the music ain’t at the same level that it used to be back in the 70s & 80s. Uriah Heep should continue touring and giving the chance to rock fans to see them and hear their back catalogue but I guess a new album every so often is not on demand.
“Outsider” is a solid album with fine performances, a great production – again by Mike Paxman (Status Quo, Asia, Judie Tzuke, Nick Kamen, etc.) but without any track that stands out or any classic one – yeap they have numerous classics so that would be kind of a redundancy. No matter what, Uriah Heep will always have a place on the rock Pantheon…