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Hensley, Ken: Blood On the Highway
 The name Ken Hensley should stir up memories for many, as he was the founding member, keyboard player, sometime guitarist & backing vocalist for hard rock/prog legends Uriah Heep. After leaving Heep in the early 80's and spending time with Southern Rockers Blackfoot and Heavy Metal band WASP, Hensley has done some session work as well as put together a few solo albums. His latest platter, titled Blood On the Highway, is an all-star affair that sees guest stars Jorn Lande, Glenn Hughes, John Lawton, and Eve Gallagher joining the Hammond organ king and his band of musicians. While it's not just a trip down memory lane (meaning a return to Heep styled bombast) there is some very good hard rock, AOR, and surprisingly strong Southern Rock styled music going on here.
The presence of Lande gives this album a real kick, as his Coverdale-ish pipes lends a very Burn/Stormbringer/Come Taste the Band flavor to tracks like "You've Got It", "Blood On the Highway", "Okay (This House is Down)", and "(This Is) Just the Beginning", with Hensley's swirling Hammond and Ovidio Lopez' guitar licks adding the rest of the mid-70's Deep Purple color. Former Uriah Heep & Lucifer's Friend belter John Lawton lends his considerable vocal talents to the hard rockin' "It Won't Last", showing that he still can cut the mustard with the best of them, and sadly, this is the only song he appears on here. The CD kind of drifts a little towards the middle, with the light, jazzy "Think Twice", featuring Eve Gallagher on vocals, and the pop ballad "There Comes a Time", which sees Hensley take the vocal slot. He's got a decent enough voice, as he also shows on "Postscipt" and "I Did It All", but he's obviously more comfortable on ballady/country rock styled material, sort of like The Eagles. It's shame that Lawton, and especially Glenn Hughes, aren't used as much. Hughes appears on the smoky AOR piece "What You Gonna Do" and the epic, orchestrated piece "The Last Dance", both good examples of his silky delivery, but it would have been nice to really hear him rip it out on a rocker fueled by Hensley's Hammond.
Blood On the Highway is somewhat of a concept album, as it tells the story of Hensley, or any other rock musician for that matter who made it through the 70's and lived the life of a rocker. Check it out, and follow along through nearly 40 years of rock and roll with one of our greatest treasures.
Track Listing
1. (this Is) Just The Beginning
2. We're On Our Way
3. Blood On The Highway
4. You've Got It
5. Doom (scene 1)
6. It Won't Last
7. Think Twice
8. Doom (scene 2)
9. There Comes A Time
10. Okay (this House Is Down)
11. What You Gona Do
12. Postcript
13. I Did It All
14. Last Dance
Added: October 13th 2007
Reviewer: Pete Pardo
Score:  
Related Link: Ken Hensley Website
Hits: 2798
Language: english
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Hensley, Ken: Blood On the Highway
Posted by Murat Batmaz, SoT Staff Writer on 2007-10-13 16:35:27
My Score:
Primarily known as Uriah Heep's amazing keyboard and guitar player in the 70's, Ken Hensley also has several solo albums, of which Blood on the Highway is his partly autobiographical concept work telling the story of a rock star in parallel to WASP's The Crimson Idol and Savatage's Streets.
With an impressive list of guest musicians, the album has a diverse nature in terms of vocals, but the overall songwriting generally dictates a classic hard rock record with some cool vocal melodies, bluesy guitar work, and the occasional Hammond organ fans of Ken Hensley have come to expect from him. Jorn Lande, who has appeared on perhaps more than a dozen projects, guests on five of the songs, of which "(This Is) Just the Beginning" showcases his Coverdale-like throaty delivery in a dense composition of groove and dense keyboard work. As expected, his singing is godly -- he is among the greatest vocalists of our time without doubt. The second piece "We're on Our Way" has a more southern rock flair to it, and features a wonderful chorus as well as a charged guitar solo by Ken Hensley.
The title track is another blues-tinged rock tune with a great vocal melody that is then repeated by guitars. Lande's singing here is out of this world, but I think it's best to hear him in a band where he can exert his more original style like he did in Ark and Beyond Twilight (he'll hopefully be doing something different on the upcoming Ayreon album by the way). On the relatively upbeat "You've Got It", he goes for a more midtempo style while "Okay (This House Is Down)" sees him going for his unique ballad singing.
Original Uriah Heep singer John Lawton appears on the more daring "It Won't Last", one of the more original tunes on the CD while "Think Twice", a bluesy piano ballad, is sung by Eve Gallagher -- an amazing voice. Check the discreet synth effects in the background and how they heighten Gallagher's intense vocalization.
Besides the two brief instrumental "Doom" scenes, which are basically spoken parts that add to the concept, Ken Hensley also sings on a couple of tunes. Of these, "There Comes a Time" is very laidback and based on gently picked acoustic guitars. It also features a pretty string arrangement and moving alto saxophone in the middle. "Postscript" is less than half a minute long, and comprised of a sad vocal melody atop bluesy acoustic guitars; it is a good precursor to the emotive "I Did It All" -- after hearing the songs Hensley picked to sing himself one can tell why he asked Jorn Lande and Glenn Hughes to do the more challenging pieces.
Glenn Hughes appears on "What You Gonna Do" and "The Last Dance", which is essentially a reworked version from an older Ken Hensley album. "What You Gonna Do" is more heavily rooted in AOR territory, with its firm rhythms and 80's style vocal arrangement, not too unlike Hughes' recent solo material.
Truth be told, while Hensley is a monster musician on the Hammond organ, I do not think these songs have been written to perfection like the older Uriah Heep material. This disc is heavily vocal-based and at times leaves me expecting more meat in the musical department given Hensley's instrumental prowess. It would have been amazing if he incorporated more of his dexterous soloing as well as progressive arrangements. That said, it is still worth checking out -- it's a Ken Hensley album after all.
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