Uriah Heep
Return To Fantasy

THE REVIEW

"The real victory is living, if you care so little about the world that we are, why do you want to survive?"   

The journey from '70 to '75 was intense, too many records in too short a time, and the fuel was running low. Byron's face shook off all the cobwebs, and moving from fantastic journeys between wizards and elves, rediscovering freedom while crossing the wonderful world, reached the "almost" terminus.
Forgive me, but for me, U.H. were solely and exclusively those with David Byron at the microphone. After him, they were first a pleasant surprise ("Firefly"), an honest group (after "Firefly"), something far from the same Uriah Heep ("Wake Up" ...). I was saying with Byron at the microphone, and here he is, and you can feel it!
Gary Thain is not on bass, but you already know the whole story, the vices, and the vicissitudes of those years. After all, keeping up with the greats with the critics and prejudices against you cannot help but leave a mark... An album between light and dark moments, between rock moments and others (my favorites) among the most reflective and melancholic the group knew how to give us. Without rambling too much, let's look at it this way:

BRIGHT LIGHTS: "Show Down" (nothing special in truth) with good Mick on the slide, "Devil's Daughter" with the Hensley/Box duel (the latter always effective) with a brilliant rhythm used. Thain is no longer here, but I already said that... Anyway, this almost funky bass...did I say funky?
"Shady Lady" r'n'r' "enough already".
Attention mental exercise: how would the Kiss of those years have done it, taking care to reshape it with their style? Guitars in evidence and the Stanley/Simmons trademark, surely it would have become a classic.
"Primadonna" but how? Is there also the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Cute, no doubt about it, and well then, one step to the left....

DARK LIGHTS: Their true nature. I could stay here spinning tales with the epic "Return To Fantasy" and Hensley's synths (an authentic hard prog hero), with "Beautiful Dream" where Byron's voice rises like the dancer on the album cover (yes, I said album, LP, vinyl, you already know how I feel about it). And still "Your Turn To Remember" and "Why Did You Go" leave you with a smile on your lips, a line on your cheeks, and lots of crushed beer cans all around.
Wouldn't it be too banal to talk about the strengths of the album no?

THE LAST TRACK
However, there is one thing I must say. Since I started listening to this band album after album, let's say from Salisbury onwards, what made me tremble with impatience was the last track. The closing of a Uriah album was like a small event within the album itself, in short, as if they wanted to give us a gift for having chosen them (those who have these records neatly aligned on their shelf can understand me).
To keep it short, "A Year Or A Day" remains, for me, one of the most beautiful and moving compositions Ken Hensley ever wrote.
Read the lyrics; it speaks of existence, future, choices, of life in the sweetest yet most melancholic way possible. This ability has always been a point in favor of U.H. that no one can contest.
Curiously, a few years ago, it was the background to an RAI documentary. If I recall correctly, it was about insects or something like that, and among other things, it described the evolution of a silkworm before it hatched, giving life to a butterfly (I probably let out a chuckle to myself).
How would David have taken it? I can already see him: jacket covered in sequins, medallions around his neck, hair in the wind, the same smirk as mine that goes: fantasyyyyyy, fantasyyyyyy, fantasyyyyyy ooohhh fantasyyyyyy.......

The (unavoidable) opinion of Commander Bossolazzi:
<<the commander says yes! 4 plump medlars>>.