Label: Bronze Records (Germany), 260 138-217
Style: Hard Rock, Classic Rock
Country: London, England
Time: 41:20
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 245 Mb
Charts: UK #39, AUS #16, GER #11, NOR #14, US #93, FIN #1, JPN #5. JPN: Gold.
There is more than just a hint of progressiveness about this album and yet it never takes this factor to its tedious extremes. Uriah Heep throws into this album a great mix of educated hard rock, great musicianship and shows their skill to the full extent of their abilities through their willingness to experiment.
The vocals on this album are simply spectacular. You won't find yourself reaching for the lyric book as every single word is crisp and clear as day. David Byron has absolutely astonishing range in his voice, whether it's the blood curdling scream near the end of "Shadows of Grief", the ballad harmonies echoed on "July Morning" or simply just the rock 'n' roll ferocity of "Love Machine". He does it all. His band mates help him out on a couple of tracks with some truly beautiful multi-layered harmonisation.
The opening title track shows straight away what lies in store. Incredibly heavy for its time the guitars and organ get continuously heavier and faster as the number progresses. There is an absolute monster of a guitar solo, which is very typical of the style of the great guitarists of the decade except played at breakneck pace. The song just keeps getting faster before breaking into some weird percussion insanity.
There is ballad like tendencies on the track "July Morning" but this mammoth composition eventually turns into a cacophony of music and reference must be made to the unearthly moog synthesiser solos towards the end well complimented by the organ/guitar structures beneath it.
"Shadows of Grief" is a very dark piece of music. At almost nine minutes in length it takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions at the despair of lost relationships and female treachery. Ken Hensley's hauntingly brilliant organ work is shadowed by a guitar riff disturbingly doom laden. The interplay between these two instruments as they duel for supremacy is quite enchanting and epitomises the whole album. The song drifts between morbid organ solos to up-beat anger and everywhere in-between.
They show their influences on "What Should be Done" which is a masterpiece of blues/jazz/funk crossover executed with such precision like only a progressive British band of the era could have done.
Their first album lacked maturity and was fairly mediocre and their second was an experimentation of epic proportions but "Look at Yourself" was a coming of age release for Uriah Heep. They developed their sound to such a degree that they stood heads and tails above their peers. I've never understood why this band weren't recognised or lauded as much as some of these very same peers in the early 70's hard rock scene. Their influence has always been underrated and they have never been very popular in the mainstream music press but the music definitely speaks for itself.
(metalstorm.net/pub/review.php?review_id=5404)
Album recorded and mixed in the analog domain - AAD. That is, a minimum of digital processing.
A=Analog. D=digital. The first letter stands for how the music was recorded. The second letter for how it was mixed. The third letter stands for the format (all CD's will have D as the last letter).
01. Look At Yourself (05:11)
02. I wanna Be Free (04:00)
03. July Morning (10:34)
04. Tears In My Eyes (05:01)
05. Shadows Of Grief (08:41)
06. What Should Be Done (04:14)
07. Love Machine (03:38)
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