Uriah Heep - Conquest
#279
by Chris Roberts
May 22 1980
Uriah Heep
Conquest
Genre: It’s Uriah Heep, ‘y’all.
Allen’s Rating: 2 out of 5
Chris’s Rating: 1 out of 5.
Conquest? Hardly. CONQUEST is something the Apes will do at the Century City Mall in 1991. This is a big heeping mess. Imagine if a karaoke-night Jeff Buckley impersonator was hired to cover The Wall backed by a Queensryche cover band. But the resulting album is produced by your cousin and paid for by your uncle. Not your rich uncle, or your good uncle. The other one. The song “Imagination” starts with some jazzy bass, and I almost thought I’d found a missing link to Opeth, but it falls into parody pretty quickly. “Feelings” and “Fools” both have fine, hooky elements of Def Leppard sized radio hits in their DNA, but obviously that cousin of yours fiddled with it too much. More icy synths! More! No way he’ll let the Heep win. This album is really, really bad, and the singing makes it very difficult to listen to. After five of the eight songs, I gave up trying to write this review and went to the internet to learn about Uriah Heep in 1980... new singer, fired after this album? CHECK. Failed attempt at a more commercial sound? CHECK. Secret fan favorite Heep album? NOPE, even the fans hate Conquest, with good reason. You’d never suspect that Uriah Heep was once considered in the same league as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Here, they’re not even in the same league as Spinal Tap. I listened to “July Morning” instead, which is the band’s 1971 sprawling rock epic, and a much better song to start with.
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