KH-eager

Like many solo artists who come from famous groups, Ken Hensley brings a lot of his band into his solo career.  That said, this is not because he is try­ing to imi­tate his day job — instead, it is a reflec­tion of every­thing he brought to Uriah Heep.  Eager To Please has every­thing Hensley fans came to expect from his work with that band: the Euro-gothic key­board stylings, the rich vocal har­monies and the painstakingly-crafted songs are all here.  However, Hensley also exper­i­ments with his Uriah Heep style in inter­est­ing ways that offer a novel twist on his famil­iar attributes.

Hard rock fans will be happy to know Eager To Please kicks off with a pair of rock­ers:  the title track is a rocked-up bal­lad whose slow-fast-slow arrange­ment is packed with emo­tive yet heavy slide gui­tar work and “Stargazer” has the Frodo-metal lyrics and chunky rif­fery that Heep fans love.  However, the exper­i­men­ta­tion begins in that sec­ond tune, which mixes a jazz-rock-style horn sec­tion mid­way through to skew the sound in an unex­pected direction.

Such exper­i­men­ta­tion is the core asset of the album.  Hensley clearly had a lot of fun apply­ing his song­writ­ing chops to dif­fer­ent gen­res:  “Secret” is a coun­try rock tune dri­ven by exquis­ite slide-guitar work from guest B.J. Cole and “The House On The Hill” is pure singer-songwriter soft rock, with a sooth­ing, dreamy melody that is nicely delin­eated by Hensley’s ele­gant elec­tric piano work.  That said, the most inter­est­ing exper­i­ment comes from some­one else: “In The Morning” is a bouncy slab of blue-eyed soul penned by bassist Mark Clarke, com­plete with a sax-as-main-axe arrangement.

Better yet, a few of the cuts use orches­tra­tion to appro­pri­ately grandiose effect.  A great exam­ple is “Through The Eyes Of A Child,” a piano-led bal­lad that grad­u­ally weaves in strings and horns to mir­ror the grow­ing emo­tional crescendo in the lyric’s tale of lost inno­cence.  It’s a fan favorite and per­haps the album’s best song.  Also, “Part Three” and “How Shall I Know” ben­e­fit from orches­trated finales that back up Hensley’s emo­tional vocals in high style.

However, none of the exper­i­men­ta­tion with genre or arrange­ment clouds the focus — which is to deliver one well-crafted song after another.  Hensley’s writ­ing from start to fin­ish, mix­ing ele­gant yet hook-conscious melod­i­cism with thought­ful lyrics that reflect his unique mix of open-heartedness and love for the writ­ten word.  His vocals are also quite good, glid­ing from falsetto to full-throated roar to fit the song’s demands.  The final touch is the rich, earthy pro­duc­tion by Peter Gallen, which lives up to Hensley’s musi­cal ambi­tions with a plushly-recorded set of sonic tex­tures that lend cohe­sive­ness to his experimentation.

In short, this album fits nicely along­side Proud Words On A Dusty Shelf as a solo-album must for moon­light­ing Uriah Heep fans.  Fans might want to note that Esoteric Recordings recently reis­sued Eager To Please on CD and they pro­vide the qual­ity mas­ter­ing, solid liner notes and attrac­tive pack­ag­ing that fans have come to expect from this young but pro­lific label (they also added a rock­ing non-album b-side called “Who Will Sing For You?” as a bonus track).