Many people are under the strange misconception that Uriah Heep is a Jonnycomelately heavy band that learned all its licks from Ritchie Blackmore's brilliant Deep Purple in Rock and never went anywhere. Not so, as in reality Uriah Heep not only have roots as thick as your arm but have played with the heavies as in Rolling Stones Guys!

The Heep Saga started long ago with a group called the Gods which featured the songwriting work of Ken Hensley and the guitar of Mick Taylor (later to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers). The Gods were a psychedelic fop foursome, only a stone's throw from Skip Bifferty, and wore the typical English Fag garb that was par for the course. But alack, these Gods did not hitsongs make and they disbanded, succeeded by the agonizingly ill-conceived Toe Fat, again featuring the mighty organ and penpower of Ken Hensley. It was soon back to the old drawing board for Kenny, not one to be defeated by such trifles, and so was born Uriah. Uriah Heep.

At the time the Heep seemed another band in the King Crimson vein, doing the pretentious art/hard&heavy trip very well. Their first album won them no large amount of fans, and their second (Salisbury) was a fairly good heavy album released in an unstrategic time (within the midst of a wave of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young mania). It died a death, but Look At Yourself was another story, the turning point for the band. It was about this time that Uriah Heep was touring America and ripping up halls across this fine land of ours, blowing such major attractions as T.Rex and Cactus clear into the back alleyways, despite drastic changes in personnel which had taken place only weeks before. Mick Box's untypical stage routine was hitting home with American youth, and David Byron's crotch-oriented mike stand antics were a smash. Our boys, once the laughing stock of everyone in New York save for Jonathan Eisen, were a bona fide success!

Nowadays we don't find that Uriah Heep have changed all that drastically, and their stage show reflects the same qualities of the group that the albums do (in that you like them for a little while, but you wouldn't actually want to listen all the way through). Oh, nowadays you can see Mick Box and Gary Thain cocking heads and charging at each other like bulls, and Mick Taylor sits in the third row inconspicuously (perhaps a bit envious of Mr. Box), but it's the same band with houses in the country and some additional cash. Who else does "Blue Suede Shoes" with five-part harmony and synchronized dance steps?

The Magician's Birthday is nothing new or surprising, and is in essence a case of Let's Have Another One Just Like The Other One. Perhaps they're getting more "artistic," and "Sweet Lorraine" sounds like a hit single to me (it also sounds like "Hold Your Head Up" and the title track bears a strong resemblance to Grand Funk's "Closer To Home" and Taste's "What's Going On" in the grand tradition of rock & roll plagiarism). But despite the fact that nothing revolutionary is going on here, this is Uriah Heep's best album hands down. (RS 129)

JON TIVEN