URIAH HEEP - LOOK AT YOURSELF UK PRESS 1971 EX BRONZE ILPS 9169 DEEP PURPLE

	£		37
	$		49

URIAH HEEP -

LOOK AT YOURSELF

BRONZE

Original UK PRESSING CAT NO. ILPS 9169 

STEREO 

AWESOME SOUNDING ORIGINAL! (NO SCRATCHES, NO JUMPS, NO CRACKLES ETC.) THE VINYL'S PLAYING SURFACE IS BEAUTIFUL AND GLOSSY! AWESOME TOP! AUDIO THROUGHOUT!! VERY RARE ORIGINAL MIRROR COVER!! VERY SOUGHT AFTER AND HIGHLY COLLECTABLE LIKE THIS!!!

 With heavy rock tones, URIAH HEEP's third release "Look At Yourself" truly marked their entrance into the world of prog rock. Of course URIAH HEEP were always more about rock than prog but managed to teeter on the border throughout their career. "Look At Yourself" offers some of Hensley's finest keyboard work as well as standout guitar work of Mick Box. This album carries a slight underground early 70's vibe but does offers superb sound quality at the same time. David Byron's vocals work to perfection on this album a carry that strong rock tinge to them. There are a couple of guests as well with Manfred MANN adding some scrumptious mini moog on "July Morning" and "Osibisa" assist on the title track "Look At Yourself". Prog rock fans might find it interesting that Ian Clarke (Ex CRESSIDA) takes prime seat for the drumming on this album as well. Overall a heavy dose or early rock with progressive tinges makes this still one of my favourite URIAH HEEP albums.

Vinyl: EX++. A smashing heavy original vinyl with only a  two wispy shallow hairlines on side A, side B is completely unmarked and probably this vinyl has barely ever been played at all. The audio is splendid and the stereo separation supreme!! Any re-issue or CD does not give you that same experience.  Of course NO jumps, sticks or skips.

Sleeve: EX.  Hard to find this sleeve in such great condition. Usually you will find sticker tears and lots of creases. Not this copy!! Well preserved with super clean, barely worn edges. The spine is 100% legible and the opening still super crisp. One tiny tear on the right bottom corner of the mirror frame (1cm). 

The first song is "Look at Yourself", a frenetic track leaded by strong guitar, choirs and organ but specially with a powerful drumming, enhanced with fantastic percussionists as Teddy Osei, Mack Tontoh & Loughty Amao from "Osibisa". The song has more drastic changes that I can count, but inclusion of the powerful organ plus Ken Hensley voice and great chorus leaded by David Byron are a constant. The song ends with a breathtaking percussion and keyboards section hardly ever heard before them.

"I Wanna be Free" begins with a hard keyboard and guitar intro, until David Byron's starts soft and goes in crescendo, Mick Box is particularly strong when his turn comes but as almost in every track David Byron's voice is a highlight, not as strong as the opener but still an excellent song.

"La piece de resistance" of "Look at Yourself" is the amazing "July Morning", one of the first epics in prog' history and the first rock song that became a major hit in the Soviet Union. A beautiful symphonic track that has almost everything, even Manfred Mann invited to play the keyboards. At this point the atmospheric sound created by the fusion of organ, Moog and guitar appear for the first time in Uriah Heep's catalogue, even though the lyrics are not brilliant, the music and David Byron's operatic voice is so spectacular that nobody really cares. A true masterpiece!!!

"Tears in my Eyes" is my all-time favorite track, starts as a relatively complex rockabilly song that without advice stops in the middle to let in an extremely complex vocal arrangement supported by Mick Box's wah-wah guitar, which is broken by an acoustic guitar just to introduce another radical change with all the band playing hard rock style. If this track is not considered progressive, I don't know what do people expect.

"Shadows of Grieve" maybe the hardest track of the album, somehow similar to Deep Purple, with Uriah Heep's characteristic style, but again the classic organ divides the track in two parts, the second one being closer to what we can understand as prog' oriented, with various changes and leading keyboards, that lead to a mysterious vocal section with haunting chorus and then a dark keyboard ending, what an outstanding track!

"What Should be Done" is a power ballad where David's voice and Ken playing piano are the higher points, again the vocal arrangements are very important as in most of this album as well as the keyboards and Mick's guitar. A good relief after so many strong tracks and before the breathtaking "finale".

Sometimes introductions lead to confusion, anybody who listens the moody organ passage at the beginning of "Love Machine" would expect something softer and even proggy, but after 27 seconds, everything is pure rock & Roll, a very good track with a terrible name. A good frenetic closer for a great album.

"Look at Yourself" may not have Gary Thain and Lee Kerslake or a Roger Dean Art cover, but IMHO is the best Uriah Heep album an one of the most influential prog/metal albums.

Though there are rarely ever any problems with my items, I always try my very best to describe everything exactly!  PLEASE REMEMBER to contact me FIRST,  if you have any problems at all, before you leave feedback and star ratings, so I get a chance to turn any negative experience into a positive one!  I can always happily sort anything out for you, if you let me know you have a problem!  This way no one has to leave Negative/Neutral feedback - and we both walk away happy! Similarly with the amount of stars, anything less than a full 5 * rating is effectively detrimental to a seller's rating as lower ratings will incur higher Final Value Fees  and lower priority in the bidlists eventually making it unattractive to list items on Ebay at all. I know of at least one major previous Ebay seller who has decided not to list via Ebay again. Please do NOT bid if you cannot give me at least 1 chance to sort everything out to your FULL satisfaction in the unlikely event of a problem.  Thanks again!!

This an excellent investment opportunity!!! Any questions please ask me and I will try to answer soon.

Though there are rarely ever any problems with my items, I always try my very best to describe everything exactly!  PLEASE REMEMBER to contact me FIRST,  if you have any problems at all, before you leave feedback and star ratings, so I get a chance to turn any negative experience into a positive one!  I can always happily sort anything out for you, if you let me know you have a problem!  This way no one has to leave Negative/Neutral feedback - and we both walk away happy! Similarly with the amount of stars, anything less than a full 5 * rating is effectively detrimental to a seller's rating as lower ratings will incur higher Final Value Fees  and lower priority in the bidlists eventually making it unattractive to list items on Ebay at all. I know of at least one major previous Ebay seller who has decided not to list via Ebay again. Please do NOT bid if you cannot give me at least 1 chance to sort everything out to your FULL satisfaction in the unlikely event of a problem.  Thanks again!!

This an excellent investment opportunity!!! Any questions please ask me and I will try to answer soon.

This an excellent investment opportunity!!! Any questions please ask me and I will try to answer soon.

Though there are rarely ever any problems with my items, I always try my very best to describe everything exactly!  PLEASE REMEMBER to contact me FIRST,  if you have any problems at all, before you leave feedback and star ratings, so I get a chance to turn any negative experience into a positive one!  I can always happily sort anything out for you, if you let me know you have a problem!  This way no one has to leave Negative/Neutral feedback - and we both walk away happy! Similarly with the amount of stars, anything less than a full 5 * rating is effectively detrimental to a seller's rating as lower ratings will incur higher Final Value Fees  and lower priority in the bidlists eventually making it unattractive to list items on Ebay at all. I know of at least one major previous Ebay seller who has decided not to list via Ebay again. Please do NOT bid if you cannot give me at least 1 chance to sort everything out to your FULL satisfaction in the unlikely event of a problem.  Thanks again!!

This an excellent investment opportunity!!! Any questions please ask me and I will try to answer soon.