Look At Yourself: original liner notes
Original liner notes by Ken Hensley.
Uriah Heep — Look At Yourself
So much has happened since we recorded “Salisbury” that this feels more like notes for a first album than for our third!
Our first American tour has to have a special mention chiefly because of its enormous effect on the band as a whole. It was, in a way, the freshest of our many recent influences – a very vivid experience!
We have succeeded in establishing our musical direction now, and the proposition of recording was more clearly defined resulting in some very exciting sessions. Many new influences were revealed and the message is there – above all it’s the music that’s important to us all!
Look At You .. self opens side one and is also our first worldwide single (fingers crossed!). Basically, it represents the band strongly and Teddy, Mac and Loughty of Osibisa added some excellent percussion to the extended final section.
I Wanna Be Free follows heavily into one of our favourite tracks July Morning. It is one of our most recent compositions and is developing into a strong ‘live’ number. David’s vocal is particularly strong here and Manfred appears for the first time with his Moog, adding some really nice colours to the final sequence – closing side one.
Side two opens with another recent song Tears In My Eyes which has more Moog, guitar, voices and, well everything.
Shadows Of Grief was written in March and was the subject of one of our most ‘frantic’ sessions. It’s impossible to explain ‘frantic’ exactly but its’ probably evident!
We were looking for a contrast because, you know, the ‘heavy’ thing gets, well heavy sometimes. What Should Be Done was written in a studio break and recorded before it was three hours old – just because it felt good that way and seemed to be what we needed.
Love Machine winds up the album as it so often winds up our act – it just rocks!
So we have borrowed a little form the heavy basis we originally enjoyed and have continued to add the natural musical progressions that develop within us, in the hope that, for as long as possible, we will be able to bring you some of the happiness and satisfaction we get from playing together.
Ken Hensley July, 1971
Our thanks to Ashley & Les; Peter Gallen for continued patience and understanding; Les for fixing broken things; Rick & Vick for working hard and cooking things; and to Gerry for everything.
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