Uriah Heep: The Most Underrated Giants of Hard Rock

I first stumbled upon Uriah Heep during my college years, the way you often discover bands that end up staying with you for life. I picked up a greatest hits album and, tucked onto the back cover, was a reproduced clipping from Rolling Stone critic Melissa Mills. In it, she famously declared she would commit suicide if Uriah Heep ever “made it.” The line came from her blistering review of the band’s debut album, …Very ’Eavy …Very ’Umble, published on October 1, 1970. It was cruel, dismissive, and meant to end the conversation right there.

Instead, it became one of rock history’s great footnotes of poetic failure.

Because Uriah Heep did make it. Quietly, stubbornly, and gloriously. In defiance of early critical scorn, the band built a career measured not in headlines but in endurance, musicianship, and a fiercely loyal global audience. Over the decades, they have sold more than 40 million albums worldwide, released 25 studio albums, and issued a mountain of live and compilation records that chart the evolution of a band that never stopped believing in its own sound.

Early on, Uriah Heep sometimes got tagged by critics as Deep Purple’s kid brother, the supposedly “watered-down” or more progressive cousin borrowing riffs from the family gene pool. It was an easy comparison to make in 1970, when both bands were forging their debut sounds in real time. In fact, they were literally doing it wall to wall, rehearsing in neighboring rooms at London’s Hanwell Community Centre, where the air was thick with amps, organs, and mutual volume abuse. If the walls could headbang, they would have.

Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore has never been shy about how that overlap felt from his side of the Marshall stack. In his view, the timing was a little too close for comfort. Uriah Heep, he said, were coming up right behind them, armed with a strong vocalist and a clear mission to close the gap. According to Blackmore, Heep singer David Byron would jokingly greet him with, “Hey, we’re catching you guys up!” and from Blackmore’s perspective, that idea of catching up became the band’s north star.

Blackmore also recalled moments that felt less like coincidence and more like déjà vu on vinyl. He would toss bits of Bach into his solos as a playful nod to his classical leanings, only to hear Mick Box echoing the same Bach phrases not long after. To Blackmore, it felt like musical mirror magic. Not malicious, not mean-spirited, just the unmistakable feeling of being closely listened to and, occasionally, echoed back.

That said, this was never framed as a diss track. Blackmore has been clear that he held Uriah Heep in high regard, even while side-eyeing the similarities. He has openly praised songs like “Gypsy” and “Lady in Black,” calling them among his favorites. In the end, it was less a case of riff theft and more a snapshot of early 70s British rock, where bands cross-pollinated ideas, blasted Bach through fuzz pedals, and raced each other toward louder, heavier, and more theatrical horizons.

Their commercial high point came with Sweet Freedom in 1973, which sold more than six million copies worldwide and remains their best-selling album. I am unabashedly devoted to it. That record has chops, confidence, and a sense of freedom that lives up to its title. It sounds like a band fully in command of its powers. Albums like Demons and Wizards, which reached No. 23 on the Billboard 200, and Uriah Heep Live further cemented their reputation as a formidable live act, even if the U.S. market never fully caught up.

Ironically, their true critical and cultural embrace came from outside the United States. In Europe, particularly Germany, Scandinavia, and Japan, Uriah Heep were embraced as giants. They were recognized not just as survivors of the early metal era but as pioneers who helped shape it. Alongside Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, they laid the groundwork for hard rock and early metal, influencing later bands like Iron Maiden and even modern acts such as Ghost.

Today, only one original voice remains. Mick Box, the band’s guitarist since 1969, is Uriah Heep’s living heartbeat. His guitar has been the defining sound of the band for over five decades, and in many ways, he is Uriah Heep. In 2025, the band announced that this would be their final tour for the next three years, aptly titled The Magician’s Birthday tour, a nod to one of their most beloved albums.

There is something quietly magnificent about Uriah Heep’s story. They were underestimated, mocked, and written off early, and yet they endured. Twenty-five studio albums do not happen by accident. Forty million records do not sell themselves. This is a band that did something right, over and over again, even when the critics weren’t listening.

Dubbed The Magician’s Farewell tour, and very much winking at their classic album The Magician’s Birthday, this is Uriah Heep’s final, all-out world tour after more than 55 years of rocking. Think of it less as a tear-soaked goodbye and more as a victory lap with amplifiers. There is no endless, milked-for-decades farewell here. The band plans to hit the road hard and proper, touring extensively for two to three years starting in 2025, celebrating a legacy that refuses to quietly shuffle offstage. If this is the last spell they cast, they are making sure it is loud, magical, and played through a stack of very large amps.

Want to toast The Magician’s Farewell in proper Heep fashion? Spin The Shadow and the Wind: 1973–1974 5CD box set from Cherry Red Records. It is a powerhouse collection from one of the band’s most formidable eras and, in my book, packed wall to wall with Uriah Heep heavy hitters.

Following hot on the heels of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, British hard rock legends Uriah Heep released their debut album in June 1970. Featuring David Byron on lead vocals, Mick Box on lead guitar and Ken Hensley on keyboards, ‘Very ‘Eavy Very ‘Umble’ is quite rightly regarded as a major influence on the development of hard rock and heavy metal. 1970 was the centenary of Charles Dickens’ death, and having originally been called Spice, they switched to the more Dickensian Uriah Heep when Hensley joined their ranks after spells in The Gods and Toe Fat before recording their debut.

Like their hard-rocking contemporaries of the 1970s, it was live on stage where Uriah Heep truly shone, and no self-respecting rock or metal band of the era could be without a classic double live album, and ‘Uriah Heep Live’ (CD1) is no exception. Recorded at Birmingham Town Hall in January 1973, and released three months later, it delivered their third gold record in a row in the States, it remains a testament to the classic line-up of Box/Hensley/Byron/Kerslake/Thain.

Back in the days when bands were expected to be prolific enough to release two new albums a year, Uriah Heep released their sixth studio album ‘Sweet Freedom’ (CD3) in 1973, by which time they had been joined by drummer Lee Kerslake (Ozzy Osbourne) and bassist Gary Thain, which many see as the most enduring line-up of the band. The album saw Ken Hensley develop as a songwriter, with the music a blend of proto heavy metal and progressive rock, consolidating their growing popularity at home as well as the all-important US market. ‘Sweet Freedom’ was followed by ‘Wonderworld’ (CD4) in June 1974, with the hard rock attack of Mick Box’s guitar, allied to Ken Hensley’s keyboards and David Byron’s operatic vocal approach, making the band a formative influence on bands such as Queen. With a significant dent in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, ‘Wonderworld’ featured the single ‘Something Or Nothing’, but was the last studio album to feature bass guitarist Gary Thain.

It was the classic Box/Hensley/Byron/Kerslake/Thain line-up that would record ‘Live at Shepperton ’74 (CD5) the same year. Issued in bootleg-style artwork, the album wasn’t given an official release until 1986, and captures the band in a more intimate setting in front of a much smaller, invited audience. CD2 was originally released as part of a deluxe version of ‘Live 1973’ and features the band in 1974 with a US Radio show session, and with film mixes from the Shepperton show and on an extended ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Medley’.