Review Summary: Not the worst Uriah Heep album but its dud status is certainly understandable.
Conquest doesn’t waste any time in signaling the series of cluster***s that Uriah Heep would go through over the course of the eighties. The lineup shuffles are in overdrive from the get-go as vocalist John Lawton and classic drummer Lee Kerslake were replaced with one-time appearances from vocalist John Sloman and drummer Chris Slade as keyboardist/vocalist Ken Hensley was also on his way out. If we go by the Black Sabbath parallels, I guess this is their Born Again?
Of course, the actual music doubles down on the light AOR path that Fallen Angel kicked up and still seems to be following Rainbow’s cues even through the Down To Earth shift. There are still some shades of classic Heep in the organs and vocal harmonies, but they are supplemented by more contemporary textures that yield less atmosphere. The musicianship also tends to hit the glass ceiling of solid but unexceptional aside from the consistently bubbling bass; it’s easy to see why Sloman didn’t really stick around as his Glenn Hughes-esque timbre comes off faceless compared to his predecessors.
And while the last couple albums had enough good songs to keep their heads above water, the writing is much less memorable here. The opening one-two of “No Turning Back” and “Imagination” set an awkward tone with their clumsy rhythms playing like Supertramp emulations while “Feelings” apes Journey with unearned crowd noise mixed in. There’s some signs of promise with the soul-tinged brooding on “Fools” and “Out In The Street,” but they still fall short of staple status.
With Conquest simultaneously coming out at the start of a new decade and the onset of the band’s implosion, its dud status in Uriah Heep’s discography is pretty understandable. There’d certainly been signs of decline before but the lack of focus and inspiration really comes home to roost here, making for an especially bland presentation. There are a couple Heep albums that I’d consider to be worse than Conquest but the rock bottom feeling is hard to shake.
