I first heard about Uriah Heap through the above review in the 1977-published (red cover) version of 'The Rolling Stone Record Guide'....a wholly opionionated and highly biased review of thousands of albums. Through this book I discovered some amazing finds that I would have certainly otherwise overlooked (Nick Drake, Leo Kottke, John Martyn, the earler works of Joni Mitchell) without which my LP collection would have been much poorer and unidimensional. Remember back then, there was no way to rediscover older music apart from niche radio and word of mouth.

But as many gems as this Guide undearthed, at times it was unfairly scathing and completely missed the mark. For instance...how would rocks greatest live album 'Frampton Comes Alive' be given just 2 stars (out of five). And their reviews of Uriah Heap were so excoriating, that I just HAD to try it out, so see if they were as bad as the RS made them out to be. Elsewhere in the same guide Uriah Heap are referred to as 'unhampered by talent'.

Turns out this Uriah Heap album is pretty good. The block in front of the review means 'zero stars'...even worse than only one star!
The image above is a scan from my own copy of this RS Record Guide.

Sample track-Lady In Black