Uriah Heep Live In Moscow (1988)

In 2008, the venerable British hard rock band Uriah Heep released Wake the Sleeper, their first new studio album in ten years. It is not unusual, of course, for a band to play several songs from a new album in concerts around the time of release. Two years later, however, Uriah Heep are heard on this concert recording playing seven of the selections from Wake the Sleeper out of 15 songs in the show. Lead singer Bernie Shaw acknowledges that the set list is "a mixture of the old and the new," after announcing, "We've got 40 years of Uriah Heep music." So they do, even if they don't actually play songs from across the 40 years.

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.

On their second album, Uriah Heep jettisons the experiments that weighed down Very 'Eavy Very 'Umble and works toward perfecting their blend of heavy metal power and prog rock complexity. Salisbury tips the band's style in the prog direction, containing one side of songs and one side dominated by a lengthy and ornate epic-length composition…

This album was the debut of Uriah Heep, an English band that would become one of the Titans of the '70s heavy metal sound. Despite their eventual hard-rocking reputation, Very 'Eavy…Very 'Umble finds the band trying on different stylistic hats as they work towards finding their own sound…