...Very 'Eavy ...Very 'Umble signed to that label. The album shows the band trying out various genres a mix of heavy metal and progressive rock rather than the hard rock that they would become known for on later albums. Tracks 3 and 8 were recorded as Spice songs prior to the band's renaming as Uriah Heep, and featured session player Colin Wood on keyboards. When Ken Hensley joined Spice in late 1969, the tracks were not re-recorded. The album was generally panned by the mainstream critical press upon its release, although it has since been acknowledged as an early classic of the heavy metal
Heavy metal subculture "Beyond the Realms of Death" by Judas Priest. On a 1985 edition of Australian music television show "Countdown", music critic Molly Meldrum spoke about intolerance to other music within the subculture, observing "sections who just "love" heavy metal, and they actually don't like anything else." Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, a guest on the program, readily concurred with Meldrum's view, and opined that his comments were "very true". Directly addressing the resistance to alternate genres seen among certain heavy metal fans, Mercury asserted: "that's "their" problem". Interviewed in 2011, Sepultura frontman Derrick Green said: "I find that a lot of people