POMPEII

I've only heard two albums from Triumvirate (the other being Old Loves) in the 70's and as you can guess I headed out straight for this album on the strength of the overblown artwork sleeve, without actually knowing anything about the band, back then. And I was cruelly disappointed with this album as I discovered some second rate ELP "clones" (this might be reductive a description of the group, but let's face it, the similarities in sound were not accidental >> these guys were riding a wave or a bandwagon). Anytime I played this record, with friends or alone, all we could think of is how Emerson would've done this better, how Palmer was much better. They sounded desperately uninspired even down to the historical concept of the album. Little did we know that earlier stuff of theirs were a bit more inspired, although still sounding ELP-like.

And if this one sounds like a second rate ELP, one more album I heard from these guys back then was the dreadful follow-up A La Carte and that rip-off classical reworking formula close to Sky and Ekseption. Needless to say that I was disgusted from this band, back then. Anyway, if you want to find out from Triumvirat, look at Double Dimple.