RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Triumvirat was a progressive symphonic rock band formed in Cologne, Germany in 1969, around the keyboardist Jürgen Fritz. Triumvirat is the Latin word for a triumvirate, a grouping of three powerful men usually connoted with the famous triumvirates of the Ancient Roman Empire. However, in this case, the word is referred to a simple musical trio.

The founding members of the group were the keyboardist and musical composer Hans-Jürgen Fritz, later simply known as Jürgen Fritz, the bassist Werner "Dick" Frangenberg and the drummer and lyricist Hans Bathelt. During their earlier days, Triumvirat initially performed Top 40 songs at local venues in Cologne. The Nice and Emerson, Lake & Palmer heavily influenced Triumvirat's musical direction, unlike almost all of their Teutonic compatriots that founded the krautrock musical style. The group envisioned a more progressive rock music style as it came mainly from England, instead pieces of music with detuned guitars and ghastly singing. In fact, at the height of their musical career during the 70's progressive classic rock era, Triumvirat was often referred to as the "German Emerson, Lake & Palmer clone", with some injustice because they were more and better than that, due to Fritz classical virtuosity on keyboards and synthesizers, in the same vein of Keith Emerson and his musical style. They made some really amazing things, really.

Triumvirat subsequently produced modestly some very successful albums during the early to the middle of 70's. The band had numerous changes in their line up but always was headed by Fritz. Their debut studio album "Mediterranean Tales: Across The Waters" released in 1972, was however dismissed by the media as a second rate infusion of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and also their follow second studio album "Illusions On A Double Dimple" released in 1974, met in Germany only a moderate response. In the following years, the band released their third studio album "Spartacus" in 1975 and their fourth studio album "Old Loves Die hard" in 1976, their most commercial successful album. In 1977 and 1978 they released their fifth and sixth studio albums "Pompeii" and "A La Carte" respectively, and in 1980 they released their seventh and last studio album "Russian Roulette". Like other progressive rock bands of the 70's, the end came for Triumvirat with the turn of the decade, with the advent of punk and disco music. "A La Carte" and "Russian Roulette" changed drastically their usual musical progressive style, bringing new musical compositions geared to funk, reggae, disco and pop rock, as if Triumvirat was trying to adapt to the new musical tastes of that era.

The line up on "Russian Roulette" is Jürgen Fritz (piano, moog, organ, synthesizers and percussion), Arno Steffen (lead vocals), Jeff Porcaro (drums), Steve Lukather (bass and electric guitars), Tim May (electric and acoustic guitars), Robert Greenidge (steel drums), Neal Stubenhaus (bass), Pete Christlieb (saxophone and clarinet), Mike gong (electric guitar), David Hungate (bass) and Alan Estis (congas and maracas).

"Russian Roulette" followed in the footsteps of their previous studio album "A La Carte". It achieved the unthinkable by collecting an even more annoying and stylistically uninteresting collection of tunes than on the poor "A La Carte". As with its predecessor, there's absolutely no indication on it that Triumvirat was once a very accomplished symphonic progressive rock band, or that Jürgen Fritz was one of the finest keyboard masters of the 70's. Tediously, generic pop rock is what they made, this time with new wave overtones and even with a reggae track. The album opens with melodic, weak Rock'n'Roll and Pop numbers in the style of Status Quo and Toto. I will admit to linking a couple of tracks such as "You Can't Catch Me", "We're Rich On What We Go" and "Twice" are all decent rock songs. Yet, for every bearable song there's a complete abominations, most notable are the funky effects of "Cooler" or the unthinkable and inadmissible reggae "The Ballad Of Rudy Turner". The rest of the tracks are completely forgettable. So, "Russian Roulette" has nothing to do with prog rock, and, what is much worse, it also comes without no noteworthy ideas, really.

Conclusion: When I reviewed "A La Carte" I wrote that it was one of my biggest disillusions in the progressive rock. However, "Russian Roulette" is even worse than "A La Carte" is. The keyboard wizard Jürgen Fritz managed to make an even worse album. He could have buried the sensational progressive rock band in the 70's. This is by far the worst thing Triumvirat ever did. "A La Carte" is a real weak album but was a pop rock effort with some few honest songs. But, this album has nothing positive to offer to a Triumvirat's fan. At least it managed to do a good thing. It became to be the band's final album, so no more pain for band's fans like me. After reviewing so many albums on this site, I only gave 1 star to two albums, till now, "Giant For a Day" of Gentle Giant and "Earthbound" of King Crimson. With "Earthbound" there was a very special reason. It deals more with the sound quality of the album than with its musical quality. But, "Giant For A Day" is really a bad work. However, "Russian Roulette" is the worst of all. So, do yourself a favour stay away of it. If you never listened to it, you'll never have a bad image of the band, especially if you are a newbie with them.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Share this TRIUMVIRAT review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to VianaProghead
• Report this review (#2902295)
• Buy TRIUMVIRAT music online with PA partners
• Show all TRIUMVIRAT MP3/Stream
• Go to TRIUMVIRAT page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Russian Roulette page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for TRIUMVIRAT related discussions