Dotoar

Worse. I mean, if you ever thought that the tales of wizards and magic spells and paradises and rainbow demons were ridiculous, then cop a load of this! However, I reserve myself by being open for the possibility that they were self-conciously goofing around, but you never know with these guys. That Hensley fella seems a bit too sincere and naive to be sporting that kind of self-distance (and he really likes to write a lot about himself and his music, which goes to show in the booklets of the Heep reissues), so I'll go ahead and assume that they really meant business once again.

Well past the first seven tracks that is, because on a whole, this album is actually a bit more humble in its approach than "Demons & wizards. Some of their most lightweight material during the Byron era is to be found on here, but alas it also turns out to be quite bland. Songs like "Spider woman" and "Sweet Lorraine" are their take on simple barroom rock, a genre pretty dull in itself even when done good, and it doesn't get any better in the hands of Heep. Then there's the almost purely acoustic (piano, I mean) "Rain" which claims to be heartfelt but ends up vanishing in its own, well, rain without a trace. "Blind eye" is a passable acoustic-driven shuffle with a neat little guitar line that makes it memorable, although the vocal melody is rather flat. The two 'mystery epics' "Echoes in the dark" and "Tales" sound just the same but they are quite pleasant while they're on, even if the former repeats the melody of "Circle of hands". And Hensley really starts to overabuse his synthesizers by now, inserting all these supposedly spooky lines in every second song, regardless of wether it's suitable or not. Please Ken, you're not the prince of darkness no matter how you wire your Moog!

The funny thing is that all of these rather bland tracks are bookmarked with two of Heep's most noteable songs ever. The lead-in track "Sunrise" is, hands down, one of their best ever, continuing the line of "July morning" in a pompous yet somewhat humble note. Not an ounce of fake mystery to be found, just a by-the-book lament over lost love, but the arrangement can't be beat. The contrast between the quiet verses and the mastodontic chorus is classic Heep at its absolute best!

And all the way on the other side we find the closing suite which is the title track, and I can't even begin to describe its utter stupidity, banality, inadequacy, idiocy, clumsiness, bad...ness....thing...y! Oh my, it's like kicking a maimed kitten! First of all, "The magician's birthday"? What the hell is that? Were they trying to cross the gap between cheap fantasy mysticism, drunken barroom populism and McCartney-esque jolliness or something? And the actual music seems to have been thought up on the spot by minds totally drained of any creativity. All the way from that stupid "riff" in the beginning through to the fadeout of the equally stupid end section, it's one big fat facepalm that even Styx would be ashamed of. That "happy birthday" chanting, what?! And just as you think it couldn't get any more down the drain, it does with the aid of an ugly "spooky" synth line, cheaper than your ma, followed by a year-long guitar wankfest (I refuse to call it a solo) accompanied by drums, and by drums only, with that childish horror-flick synth fading in and out every now and then, totally out of sync. And those clumsy transitions, oh my, I shudder even by thinking about it, not to mention writing about it. And the "evil" ending where Byron imitates the magician's intentions of spoiling the party, oh well, he was right about that. And to think that this is supposed to be a Heep classic! Says it all about their fanbase, doesn't it?

So this puppy can't help but being dragged way down by the misdeeds of the title track alone, something which probably was only bound to happen sooner or later with a band like Heep. But like I said, apart from that last piece of decomposed dung, it's actually not bad. Certainly not very good well past the marvellous "Sunrise", but at least listenable without too much stupidity coming in the way of the flow until you-know-when. The formula carried on from the predecessor is all but set though, and it already starts to show just how thin that formula is.

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