In 1972, Uriah Heep released their last two albums, both oriented towards progressive hard rock: "Demons and Wizards" and "The Magician's Birthday", released seven months apart.
With "Demons and Wizards" and "The Magician's Birthday", Uriah Heep cemented their place in the rock world as masters of gothic-influenced heavy metal. These albums contained a series of sharp hard rock tracks combined with progressive elements, featuring epic and dense narratives, melancholic and dark pieces, and sublime ballads brimming with beauty. All of this was conceptually wrapped in fantastical and mythological journeys, as demonstrated by the two medieval and imaginative album covers designed by Roger Dean.
The opening of “Demons and Wizard” couldn't be more spectacular with the melodic and grandiose “The Wizard”, followed by the hard rock tracks “Traveller In Time” and “Easy Living”, and the complex and outstanding “Circle of Hands”. The album then returns to hard rock with two more powerful anthems: “Rainbow Demon” and “All My Life”. The grand finale is the apotheosis of the suite “Paradise/The Spell”, which, divided into several parts, begins atmospherically and melancholically before transforming into a forceful progressive hard rock track driven by an omnipresent organ and a guitar in the purest Floydian style.
