Dotoar

This is the album that Heepologists will recommend to any unsuspecting freshman, containing no less than two classics as well as being the first and arguably best album featuring the classic lineup of Byron, Box, Hensley and the once again reassembled rythm section of Lee Kerslake (of future Blizzard of Ozz fame) and Gary Thain (of future heroin overdose fame). In a certain respect, this is as good as Heep ever would be, becasue even despite being ridiculously overblown and inadequate in all its hollow D&D imagery, it's still fresh enough music-wise as well as containing a reasonable low amount of offensive c o c k-rockers. In other words, the balance between pompous banality and primitive banality is just about right this time around. Just about.

You probably already know of the two evergreens "The wizard" and "Easy livin'", both sort of covering in the two main areas of Heep's musical legacy; one being an acoustic-driven post-hippiesque celebration of magical mystery wonders, the other being a fast-paced boogie stomper to please the beer-drinking crowd done in their trademark stress-shuffle style which they would overabuse in the future. Both of these are good as long as you disregard the lyrics (the ones in "The wizard" are among the most embarassing they ever did, even by their own low standards), something you by the way should do throughout the album anyway (or throughout any Heep album; oh my, why am I even touching the subject?). Another minor classic is the proto-doom "Rainbow demon", as stupid as ever of course, but damn is it enthralling in its slooooow plodding progress! This is probably how Sabbath would sound had they acquired an organist and a better singer. I believe it has even been covered by some modern day metal band whose name I've forgotten.

"Traveller in time" is a nice enough pop-rocker where Hensley drives his organ through a wah-wah to an interesting effect, and the somewhat similar "Poet's justice" is even better melody-wise. "Circle of hands" drags a bit though, and even dares to rip off the mellotron part of King Crimson's "In the court of the crimson king", and the "Wizard"-like "Paradise" which naturally betrays the sign of self-repeating, is just dull. And of course, being released in the year of progressive heights, they try to top themselves with an epic ending in "The spell" which starts out as yet another "Look at yourself/Easy livin'"-clone, albeit in a major key this time. Soon it dissolves itself into a slow, supposedly moody, passage that claims to be spine-chilling with a soaring slide guitar part. Now, we all know that Heep are still a bunch of drunken heavy rock bums that could never hope to even begin approaching the grandiosity of Genesis or Yes, so it wouldn't be fair to condemn their attempts at creating dumbed-down prog for the masses by the standards of the prog elite. But even when you take all this into account, "The spell" still remains completely worthless; it's not heavy enough to be exciting (like "Shadow of grief"), nor is it daring enough to be artsy (like "Salisbury") but the intent of making a chilling epic are as clear as the end result is just pathetic. I mean, if you want truly emotional tension building, go check out "Firth of fifth" by Genesis, and if you want unadulterated excitement, go check out "Child in time" by Deep Purple. "The spell" is just one big fat zero.

Unfortunately it heralds the way of what they would spend just too much time and effort on in the near future, i.e. trying to one-up their already failed amibition at being an art band, way above heavy riffing and simple headbanging. Still, disregarding this duffer as well as the two preceding tracks ("All my life" is another waste of space; Byron's "I-I-I-I wi-i-i-ill lo-o-o-ove you-u-u-u" is beyond stupid, but at least it's short), "D&W" contains their biggest ever bunch of decent-to-good songs. After all, it was good enough for them to build their subsequent 3 or 4 records on, and that has to account for something, right?

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