Uriah Heep - Wake the Sleeper Review
by Kevin Wierzbicki
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I am fairly certain that you have to look far and wide these days, at least in the United States, to find fans of Uriah Heep. The band never did curry much favor in this country outside of their mystically-themed albums from the early '70s, The Magician's Birthday and Demons & Wizards which cast a spell on the American pop charts with the hit "Easy Livin'." When you do stumble across a fan of Heep, though, they're going to joyfully recall how good those two albums were; they're not going to know much about the other (eighteen!) studio albums the band has released over the years. And until now it looked like the guys had called it a career; it's been a decade since they last put out new material with 1998's Sonic Origami. Of course there is a certain element, probably those who were never fans to begin with, who would say the band should have stayed retired. Wake the Sleeper doesn't really make a case either way; it's too good to be damned (these are veteran rockers, after all) but it's too unexciting to rave about. The opening cut, the title cut, is an instrumental save for some chanting of "wake the sleeper" that finds guitarist and sole original member Mick Box trying to wake the band's audience with some very fast and flashy riffs a la Joe Satriani. The next five songs are a showcase for new singer Bernie Shaw, who has a fine voice but the material presented would be more suitable for a Rainbow or Deep Purple reunion record than for Uriah Heep. It isn't until deep into the record that the band tosses around the gothic overtones that distinguished their early work; play "Angels Walk with You," "Shadow" or "War Child" for an aging head and they'll be smiling like the first time they 'shroomed. Wake the Sleeper is certainly listenable but really all you need to know about Uriah Heep happened thirty-five years ago.
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Uriah Heep - Wake the Sleeper
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