Year Of Metal #074: Uriah Heep - Abominog
While they haven’t crossed over in the same way as some of their contemporaries, Uriah Heep are arguably the great survivors of UK heavy metal. Not only are they still performing, they’re still putting out records at a remarkable rate. I can’t imagine they’re especially good, but you can’t knock that for work ethic, especially when you’re the kind of band who can play the festival circuit at a certain level without ever considering a new note again.
1982’s Abominog was a pleasant surprise, better than I could have hoped for a band of this ilk, especially given it’s their 14th full length release. The sound is of a band somewhat in flux; in the early eighties, metal and hard rock tastes were changing apace, and this venerable act had to keep up. Their attempts to do so aren’t aren’t always totally successful, though even their failed efforts tend to be pretty damn charming. Case in point: “Chasing Shadows”, a sci-fi rocker that puts me in the mind of Todd Rundgren’s solo work. I’m a big fan, as it goes, of Rundgren’s solo work, but when he’s laying down these goofy keys and super overdriven guitar licks, you get the feeling he’s at least partially having a laugh, whereas I’m not sure the Heep lot’s collective tongues are similarly planted cheekwards.
Things get worse on the ballads. “Hot Night In A Cold Town” is pure AOR cheese, paint by numbers stuff with a faux-deep title and a synth sound that must have depreciated in value the moment it was driven off the lot. Even this isn’t without its charm for its occasional stabs at cock rocking guitar and the melodramatic harmonies, but if you heard this on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, you wouldn’t bat an eye.
When the lads forget all this modern slop and just stick to rockin’, though, Abominog is pretty great. They open on killer form with “Too Scared To Run”, which gets off to a gallop with a superb (if not massively original) riff from Mick Box, who can boast a remarkable 55 years of service with the group. There’s nothing fancy here - it’s just quality hard rock in the best British fashion.
All this is helped by the vocal prowess of Peter Goalby. He only put in three LPs’ worth of time with the Heep, but they get their money’s worth from him here. From his fairly limited credits, it doesn’t seem he was a metal man first and foremost, and that lack of am dram in his voice makes him a grounding presence. The record may be called Abominog and have some dreadful demon on the cover, but Goalby’s serious, bluesy voice keeps things a little more respectable.
It lets the band cut through tracks like the more contemporaneous “Hot Persuasion”, which sounds like something Aerosmith would consider putting out. Most of these heavy metal acts can’t really pull off the sex songs like Steve Tyler can, but Uriah Heep manage it here. The track steadily builds in energy until everyone’s giving it the big licks as they fade out mid-jam. While it’s not exactly cool or dignified, there’s a twinkle and a winningness to this gear that I didn’t get from Iron Maiden or Scorpions.
Without wanting to completely damn this thing with faint praise, I expected this album to be a whole lot more lame than it ultimately turned out to be. There’s somewhat of a sound of a band trying to figure out where to go next in a strange cultural landscape, but it feels like they’re experimenting and having fun rather than desperately scrabbling around, and when they say ah fuck it and go back to good old rock, it really works.
