POMPEII

The band was now called New Triumvirat, given Hans Bathelt and Dick Frangenberg left and there were legal matters over the Triumvirat name. So Jurgen Fritz and Barry Palmer brought in Dieter Petereit for bass, and none other than Curt Cress on drums who played with Passport, Atlantis (basically Frumpy with a new name and a more mainstream sound), and tons of others. For most, this was the beginning of the downfall of Triumvirat, but for me the decline was already showing on their previous, Old Loves Die Hard. Honestly, I don't find Pompeii any worse. In fact, some of the ballads I actually find easier to take in than say, "I Believe" or "A Cold, Old Worried Lady", like "Journey of a Fallen Angel" or "Rich Man and the Carpenter". They still hadn't abandoned prog, as demonstrated on "Vesuvius 62 A.D.", "Viva Pompeii", "Dance on the Volcano", and "Vesuvius 79 A.D.", although Barry Palmer's voice does not seem most fitting of this kind of music, but he doesn't sing that much on these songs, and "Dance on the Volcano" is all instrumental. I noticed Jurgen Fritz looked up so much to his hero Keith Emerson that he himself got a monster Yamaha GX-1 polyphonic synthesizer (how he managed to pull that on off I can't say given I'm certain he didn't quite have anywhere as big a budget as Emerson, or John Paul Jones or Stevie Wonder, other GX-1 users, but then Rick van der Linden of Ekseption and Trace also owned one). Fritz still uses plenty of that Hammond organ, as well as Moog, and other keyboards. Like Old Loves Die Hard, even progheads will find the proggy stuff the most to enjoy, but the Barry Palmer-sung ballads might be avoided, but as I stated, I found them easier to take in, aside from "The Hymn", which bad as the worst moments of Old Loves Die Hard. That choir really doesn't help matters any. Certainly not in the same league as Mediterranean Tales, Illusions on a Double Dimple or Spartacus, but it's still not bad. Of course, they completely abandoned prog for the next two albums, and to this day, I still don't own A La Carte and Russian Roulette, given there's likely little I'll find much to enjoy.