TRILOGY

While I'm not the biggest fan of ELP inspired bands there are exceptions like TRIUMVERAT and this band called TRILOGY both from Germany. TRILOGY is named after an ELP album and they have two keyboardists both playing organ and synths with one of them adding clavinet. Guitar, bass and drums rounds out this five piece. This all instrumental record was released in 1980 but sounds like it's from the 70's and they would release one more album in 1984 which has a vocalist.

The two keyboardists dominate the sound but man that guy can drum and that bass is so upfront and it just drives the music. This has been a pleasure this week, just a buffet of sounds beautifully arranged. Yes we get some ELP-like bombast but that's rare and no silliness here. GENESIS came to mind a few times and while you know who inspired them they make this record their own. Repeating themes and melodies at will and the one thing that did surprise me was how little there is of that guitar. The guy can play but other than "Crowded" the longest track at over 12 1/2 minutes he's more about creating a layer of sound, blending in you could say. I still feel "Venice" the opener is the best track on here. Just hearing that organ melody that is repeated on this one is just always a pleasure.

I would be repeating myself a lot going track by track but I'm just so impressed with this one, a real surprise and a solid 4 stars. When this was reissued in the 90's the band requested a new album cover which is really cool, you can see it on Discogs as they were never happy with the original(me neither) of someone in a straight jacket-like situation. The music though will absolutely thrill keyboard fans.

Instrumental symphonic prog from Germany with two keyboard players dominating. Some include Here It Is under Neo Prog for its use of very familiar ELP-, CAMEL-, and GENESIS-like structures and sounds.

1. "Venice" (4:31) a mix of FOCUS and GENESIS before turning ELP at the 2:00 mark. High quality sound and musicianship. (9/10)

2. "Breakthrough" (6:04) despite the very Mike Rutherford-sounding bass play, this song draws from other bands as well as the band's own originality. Could be American band HAPPY THE MAN. (9/10)

3. "Changing Scene" (9:17) opens with some GENESIS- but more CAMEL-sounding music; it's as if one keyboard player is trying to be TONY BANKS while the other PETER BARDENS or KIT WATKINS as the bass player does his MIKE RUTHERFORD thing. A nice song with pleasant melodies and challenging time and chord shifts but, in the end, it feels like an exercise in imitation--of Genesis and Camel. (18/20)

4. "Andy" (6:10) organ, cymbals, and synths open this before it turns neo-classical in a CAMEL/NEKTAR kind of way. The Hammond turns out to be the lead instrument in this ELP-like classically-influenced weave though a clavinet also plays an important roll. Some riffs and motifs are almost exact duplicates of ELP passages. The drumming sounds very much like Camel's Andy Ward. All in all this song feels more like a study of ELP. (8.75/10)

5. "Crowed" (12:42) a very CAMEL-like instrumental epic, with lots of sudden ELP-like shifts and passages with occasional TONY BANKS isms. (22.5/25)

6. "Encore" (0:33) high-energy RUSH-like outro. (4.5/5)

Total Time (with bonus material): 45:06

I really appreciate the wonderful clarity and distinctiveness of the sound engineering of this album.

4.5 stars; a near-masterpiece of progressive rock music; an excellent album that probably deserves more credit for its outright symphonic composition instead of its influences and inspirations.

An one off german group of the late 70´s. Strongly influenced by Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Triumvirat, plus a little from Genesis too. This quintet had two keyboards players, plus guitar, bass and drums. However, the guitar parts are hardly ever heard, except for a few short solos on a couple of tunes and a nice acoustic overlay on the first track. All the tracks are instrumentals. It was released by the small independent label Cain in late 1979. It sank without trace, which is no real surprise: It was no time for prog music, much less an instrumental LP. It was later released in the CD format by Musea.

I found the music here a bit derivative and not exactly too exciting, but good anyway. Lots of fine analog keys (no cheesy and plastic 80´s synth stuff here, thank god!). The rhythm section is very competent. Nice melodies overall, with no bad tunes nor great highs either. If you´re a fan of the aforementioned bands and don´t mind the lack of originality, chances are you´re gonna like Here It Is very much. It is really a pity they had no chance to record a follow up, since the potential for greater things is quite clear.

Rating>: 3 stars. Good, but definitely non essential

What did you expect from a band who named themselves after an ELP album ?

An ELP copy, probably. Which is not far from the case here. I would also add TRIUMVIRAT and early GROBSCHNITT into the mix here. Take away the vocals and you have this German band.

The opening minutes are great. The bombastic, very Keith Emerson like keys rips this album open like a ripe fruit. This is a keyboard band only. Unfortunate, the music also develops into a bad TV series concept album. Like the 80s MIAMI VICE series. Why do I get images like this in my head ? The lack of vocals, I guess. The music is not particular great either. It is just a ELP bandwagon album and I do understand why this band only did one album.

I guess ELP and TRIUMVIRAT fans will like this album. I am a fan myself, but this band is a bridge too far for me. I would still give this album 3 stars though because the album is not bad. It is just a copycat.

3 stars.

Trilogy, nice name for a prog band - did a great job here on the only album they released in 1979. It's clear that they were influenced by EL,P and Triumvirat, but i think is not a clone band of those monster bands. Trilogy uses two simultaneous keyboardists and the sound is very intense and symphonyc, in fact the keys is the cherry on the cake here. Another thing to mention is that the album is all instrumental, and the members done a complex keys passages just listen to Crowded, the best track from here and the longest. Fans of bands mention above will love this album. Maybe not a masterpiece but for sure a 4 star album, worth every track to listen. 4 stars.

From the North Eastern side of Germany, Trilogy came out as a symph prog instrumental act, heavily influenced by their ELP-ish compatriots Triumvirat (what's more, Trilogy used to cover some Triumvirat tunes during their early years). Having started as a keyboard-centered power trio (Kirstein, Samson & Breuer) in the mid 70s, it wouldn't take long before a second keyboardist called Guido Harding and a guitarist came into the fold, therefore augmenting the band's sonic spectrum. As a result, the band could instill other influences, such as Camel and quartet-era Genesis: after all, this band's tendency was never as aggressive as ELP nor as deliberately pompous as Triumvirat themselves, so it is easily noticeable that the band felt more comfortable with this quintet format, putting melody in a more prominent position than bombast. Still, Trilogy's overall sound continued to be very heavily centered, with the Hammond organ and the synthesizers assuming an undisputable leading role. The guitar department suffered from the result of line-up inconsistencies: once the basic tapes for this album had been recorded, the guitar parts had to be eliminated since the one in charge of the 6-string stuff had been fire, so, in the eleventh hour, a very proficient new guitarist - Detlef Deeken - joined in and overdubbed some exquisite leads and adornments. Since the recording conditions were far from ideal (a limited multi-track approach, no formal recording contract, recording sessions that took many separate places and months for just one track.), they affected the crucial keyboard department: with two keyboardists in a band, it is now clear why there is not a more featured presence of synths, piano and other similar stuff (as in, for example, Corte dei Miracoli, Epidaurus or Kansas). Eventually, the album was published in 1980, three years after the first recording sessions! So many cons regarding this album, yet the pros are very powerful, too: captivating melodic ideas, effective interplaying, fine arrangements, fluid tempo shifts. The opener 'Venice' comes as a gentle air of introspectiveness, before the more upbeat ambience of 'Breakthrough' and the elegant complexity of 'Changing Scene' light thing up. 'Andy' is more restricted to the main melodic pattern drawn up, while 'Crowded' (the longest track in the album) brings back the symphonic ambitions so unabashedly exposed on track 3. The brief encore (titled 'Encore'... right) that ends up the album's original repertoire brings some sort of funny solemnity, like a lady's discrete farewell. Well, last but not least, the bonus track 'Triebsand' - recorded but not published until this CD edition - turns out to be the best Trilogy number: more exciting and catchier that the rest, it also comprises Deeken's best lead and some of the best synth harmonies and leads. It should have been the album's opener. but things are simply as they are, aren't they? Well, my overall rating lies somewhere between 3 and 3 ½ stars: "Here It Is" should have been excellent, but it fell short of its full potential and became only very good. Anyway, it would make an interesting addition to any symphonic prog lover's collection.

I was really taken by surprise by this album. The reason of course, is the late year of release: 1980. The album was actually recorded at the beginning of 1979, but the band had no luck in getting the album released for the stretch of a year (they even tried to get it released through Klaus SCHULZE, presumably through his then-newly established Innovative Communicaitons label, but to no avail). They then got it released on a small label called Cain in 1980, and as you might expect, fell through the cracks, since no one was interested in prog anymore (this was an era where punk and disco was on the decline and new wave was coming in).

The band consisted of two keyboardists (Guido Harding, Jochen Kirsten), bassist Ludgor Samson, guitarist Detlef Deeken, and drummer Martin Bruer. The two keyboardists played Mini Moog, Hammond organ, clavinet, Farfisa electric piano, and string synths, and for such a late era, created some excellent keyboard sounds (no one will complain that it's too "plastic sounding"). Originality wasn't on the band's side, the rather obvious ELP and GENESIS influences are plain for everyone to see. But despite that, the music is top quality. It also sounds very '70s, so '70s prog fans won't have anything to complain about (despite the 1980 release).

The opening cut, "Venice" proves that. The next two cut, "Breakthrough" and "Changing Scene" are two more mid-tempo pieces. "Andy" and "Crowded" are my two favorites here, the latter being the longest piece (at over 12 minutes), I especially like the intense middle passage, and the great themes found throughout. "Encore" is pretty useless, as it was one of the themes from "Breakthrough", and it's only 33 seconds long. And while the old LP is apparently next to impossible to get a hold of (I never seen it offered anywhere), Musea Records in France reissued this gem on CD (but with new artwork, because the band apparently wasn't present to oversee the artwork when Here It Is came out, since they were pretty certain it would never be released). The reissue comes with a bonus cut, "Treibsand". This piece originally came from a 1981 compilation album of various bands from Dorsten, Germany (where the band is from), and is a 1981 version of a song that never made it on to "Here It Is" (due to the usual time constaints of the LP). This version totally smells of 1981, because of those ugly, early '80s polyphonic synths that are popping up here (luckily the Mini Moog and clavinet are still here, they should've stuck with their Roland string synth instead of that Oberheim OBX, Prophet 5, or whatever that was). I can hardly be more pleasantly surprised, this is truly one of the best prog rock albums released during the prog dry spell of 1979-92.

Fans of complex German space progressive rock fans will groove with this release. "Here It Is" combines the keyboard workout of ELP with the atmosphere of GROBSCHNITT and GENESIS. TRILOGY combine 2 keyboard players with a tight guitar/bass/drum ensemble which sound magical when they are all combined. Songs are nice and spacey with some real flavorful grooves and beats. I should also mention that "Here It Is" is totally instrumental and very symphonic. Lovers of analog keyboards will drool in your sleep over this release...

Trilogy was a German quintet (with two simultaneous keyboardists) who put in 1979 their only album. To talk about this grop, is necessary talk about Triumvirat, another and best known German band. The musical style is exactly the same, except for one detail: the Trilogy album was entirely instrumental. As Triumvirat was a very ELP influenced band, we can easily deduce that music in "Here It Is" remember a lot the British popular trio. However, we can't forget the year: in 1979, ELP and Triumvirat were decadent groups, making very poor and commercial works. It isn't the case of Trilogy. "Here It Is" recovered the best tradition of the truly progressive sound of those bands and, despite the lack of originality, conformed a real good effort. The best tracks, IMO, are "Andy" and "Crowded", but all themes are in the same quality standards. Specially recommended to ELP fans.