Ur Musig (1993) Cyrill Schläpfer, Rees Gwerder, Jakob Alder, Jakob Duesel

After scoring back-to-back album hits with Demons and Wizards and The Magician's Birthday, Uriah Heep had suddenly become a major attraction in the world of rock & roll. They capitalized on their newfound popularity with extensive touring and, since they lacked the time in their schedule to knock out a new studio album, their label decided they should release a live album to fill the gap. The result was Live: January 1973, the definitive live recording of the classic Uriah Heep lineup and a good indication of what made the group so popular among heavy metal fans during their heyday. The set list represents all the highlights of their albums up to the point, and everything is delivered with maximum energy before an enthusiastic Birmingham, England, crowd.

Neo-prog band Pendragon formed in London during the heady days of punk, but didn't coalesce until 1983, when the band began playing around London and earned a small spot at that year's Reading Festival. The lineup stabilized, after the 1985 album Jewel, around vocalist/guitarist Nick Barrett, bassist Peter Gee, drummer Fudge Smith and keyboard player Clive Nolan. Pendragon recorded the live album 9:15 in 1986 and began to establish a continental fan base the following year. European audiences proved enthusiastic, spawning a contract with the French M.S.I. label; nevertheless, the group was forced to form its own Toff label just to release material in England.

On the Night is the second live album by the British rock band Dire Straits, released on 10 May 1993 by Vertigo Records internationally, and by Warner Bros. Records in the United States. The album features many of the band's later hits, including the singles "Walk of Life" and "Money for Nothing". On the Night was recorded in May 1992 at Les Arenes in Nîmes, France, and at Feijenoord Stadion in Rotterdam, The Netherlands—concerts that were part of the On Every Street Tour, which included 216 shows in Europe, North America, and Australia, and sold 7.1 million tickets.

The Deep Purple Singles A’s & B’s is a compilation album of singles released by the British hard rock band Deep Purple. It was released on vinyl in October 1978. An updated version of the album was issued on CD in 1993 and contains the complete collection of Deep Purple’s UK singles, recorded and released from 1968 to 1976 by the Mk I, II, III and IV line-ups of Deep Purple.

1993's blistering return to form finds IQ rediscovering the mojo they displaced after 1985's dark, stark, startlingly brilliant `The Wake', a fact not entirely unconnected to vocalist Peter Nicholls' return to the band. But there is more to it than this. It sounds like the whole band has taken stock after a couple of below-par albums, stopped trying to be something they are not, and asserted the collective personality, sound and approach that has served them well right up to this day.

Although it's not on the same level as the best progressive bands – the drums and keyboards are not really up to the challenge presented by the guitars – this album has been rather unfairly written off by some music critics. Their debut begins with their strongest composition: "Voices," whose multiple movements, chorus lyrics of "a million voices singing," broad washes of mellotron, and alternating guitar tones make it sound like an outtake from Yes's "The Ancient." The instrumental "Theme" has some fine jazz-prog sax soloing over a lush backing, and "Dawn of Evening" has a wonderfully taut bassline march pushed to the front of the mix.

Minstrel in the Gallery was Tull's most artistically successful and elaborately produced album since Thick as a Brick and harkened back to that album with the inclusion of a 17-minute extended piece ("Baker Street Muse"). Although English folk elements abound, this is really a hard rock showcase on a par with – and perhaps even more aggressive than – anything on Aqualung. The title track is a superb showcase for the group, freely mixing folk melodies, lilting flute passages, and archaic, pre-Elizabethan feel, and the fiercest electric rock in the group's history – parts of it do recall phrases from A Passion Play, but all of it is more successful than anything on War Child.

Frontiers managed to give Journey four Top 40 hits, with "After the Fall" and "Send Her My Love" both reaching number 23, "Faithfully" at number 12, and "Separate Ways" peaking at number eight – the same amount that 1981's Escape brandished. While they tried to use the same musical recipe as Escape, Frontiers comes up a little short, mainly because the keyboards seem to overtake both Schon's guitar playing and Steve Perry's strong singing. An overabundance of Jonathan Cain's synth work cloaks the quicker tunes and seeps into the ballads, slightly widening the strong partnership of Perry and Schon.

The French equivalent of prog-rock bands Yes and Genesis, Atoll recorded four albums in the mid- to late '70s with a lineup that stabilized by the time of the group's second album. L'Araignee Mal (1975) included vocalist/percussionist André Balzer, guitarist Christian Beya, bassist Jean-Luc Thillot, keyboard player Michel Taillet, and drummer Alain Gozzo. Gradually commercializing its sound beginning with third album Tertio, Atoll released only one more studio album Rock Puzzle before breaking up. In the late '80s, however, a new, pop-oriented version appeared. Including only Beya from the previous lineup, the band released L'Ocean and the live album Tokyo C'est Fini (both 1989).