With Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep were the purveyors of the "dark" subgenre of hard-rock at its inception. They were technically incompetent and stylistically irrelevant, but nonetheless managed to last forever.

Very 'eavy Very 'umble (vertigo, 1970), with Gypsy, and Salisbury (Vertigo, 1971) were albums of conventional hard-rock and progressive-rock, repeating what countless bands had already done. The latter contains the extended suite of Salisbury, a concerto for rock orchestra and philarmonic orchestra. Look At Yourself (Bronze, 1971) coined their melodic style, that triumphed with Demons and Wizards (Bronze, 1972), featuring their best known singalong, Easy Livin', and Wizard. The line-up kept changing, but rarely improved the quality of the albums: The Magician's Birthday (Bronze, 1972), Sweet Freedom (Bronze, 1973), with Stealin', Wonderworld (Bronze, 1974, Return to Fantasy (Bronze, 1975), High and Mighty (Bronze, 1976), Innocent Victim (Bronze, 1977), Firefly (Bronze, 1977), Fallen Angel (Bronze, 1978), Wonderful (Bronze, 1980), Conquest (Bronze, 1980).

A new, new, new line-up resurfaced in the 1980s. Abominog (Bronze, 1982), Head First (Bronze, 1983) and Equator (Bronze, 1985) are actually better played than anything Uriah Heep did when they were famous. Vocalist David Byron died of an overdose in 1985. The band did not give up and released Raging Silence (Legacy, 1989), yet another return, followed by Different World (Legacy, 1991) and countless reunions.