Get Ready to ROCK! Review of CD album by rock band Uriah Heep called Into The Wild

Just three years after Uriah Heep's first new album in a decade, they have followed 2008's 'Wake the Sleeper' with a relatively quick follow-up to capitalise on renewed interest in the band. There has also been a change of record label to Frontiers, and I wondered whether it was more than coincidence that this is accompanied by a more straight ahead, melodic direction that hints in places at some of their 1980's output such as 'Equator' and 'Raging Silence'.

Indeed opener 'Nail On the Head' has a surprisingly rhythmic groove, with the chorus bearing an unfortunate resemblance to disco anthem Oops Upside Your Head (or as hooligans used to sing on football terraces at the time, Get a Boot Wrapped Round Your Head). Later in the album, 'T-Bird Angel' is the most overtly catchy commercial rocker they have released since 'Blood Red Roses'.

Fortunately for more traditional Heep fans most of the album is more typical fare, with the rapid fire 'I Can See You' perhaps the stand out track on the album and Southern Star continuing the nautical theme set on Wake the Sleeper's 'Ghost of the Ocean'.

The new album 'Into The Wind' focuses on the band's strengths of a big organ led sound, strong harmony vocals and big melodies, was there a conscious attempt to write that way?

We've never strayed too far from what we've done in the past. The title track for example, came from our keyboard player Phil Lanzon having read the book and seen the film of 'Into The Wild', and that gave us a starting point.

Pretty soon however, we had a good hook and lyrics to match and then it became something radically different and we added our own story line.

Then there was the title itself which worked well for us. It was something of a double edged sword as you start with the book and film, work on the song and eventually record all the rest of the tracks and complete the album. And by the time you have finished the whole thing, it's only you, the engineer and the record company that has heard it. So effectively you are releasing it 'Into The Wild'!

We had a good melody and we had the lyrics for the title track and then we tried to put the song together. Some of the song was already written before it turned out to be very different from what we originally had in mind.

Once again it was the people from the Frontiers record company who wanted a rock album. We originally envisioned it as having much more medium tempo stuff.

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