For those who want their heavy metal infused with wizards living in mountain homes, rainbow demons riding on horses of fire, a million silver stars, acoustic guitars and heavy handed organs, this is the album for you. Plus you get "Easy Livin'", Uriah Heep's only Top 40 hit in the US , a Roger Dean album cover ( with hidden images of male and female genitalia)... and wisdom: "Today is Only Yesterday's Tomorrow". I'm not sure what to do with that wisdom exactly. Maybe tack it up on the fridge and see if it sinks in.
There are far more painful listens in the early 70's heavy metal sphere. Demons and Wizards offers short, sharp shocks of metal along with a 12 minute epic called "Paradise/The Spell" at the end. Had I mixed more with a different crowd, who's to say this wouldn't be a magic carpet ride back to a youth spent smoking pot in a room filled with black light posters.
Rolling Stone critic Mike Saunders was impressed with Demons and Wizards.
These guys are good. The first side of Demons and Wizards is simply odds-on the finest high energy workout of the year, tying nose and nose with the Blue Oyster Cult...They may have started out as a thoroughly dispensable neo-Cream and Blooze outfit, but at this point Uriah Heep are shaping up into one hell of a first-rate modern rock band.
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