POMPEII

When former Triumvirat musician-singer-songwriter Helmut Koellen died on May 3rd, 1977, Triumvirat as it existed had been working with the idea of doing a concept album based on the disaster in Pompeii, Italy. Overcome by grief and loss at losing such an important Triumvirat member as Koellen, Jurgen Fritz and others decided to turn their feelings into positive, creative action, and the result was the Triumvirat album "Pompeii".

Barry Palmer's vocals are pretty well done, and he has a fine voice, but the use of vocals is sometimes overdone on Pompeii and this can detract from the appreciation of the accompanying music. The vocals actually would probably be to greater effect if they were a little less elaborate, I think.

Pompeii is a well engineered and produced record, though,and the instrumental music, especially, is of high quality. Jurgen Fritz especially shines as keyboardist, and Passport musicians Dieter Petereit on bass, and drummer Curt Cress are great, as well. Triumvirat still have that knack of getting just a bit jazz influenced in the middle of things at times to great effect. For me, I prefer the instrumental tracks, though, admittedly, there are not many of them. Despite that, I do feel that the Pompeii disaster was effectively conceptualised, and Palmer sings some interesting and enthralling stories on this album. Oh, well, not a perfect album, but records seldom are. I give it three stars-Pompeii is not great, but good.